Effects of various fibre-rich extracts on cholesterol binding capacity during in vitro digestion of pork patties

Abstract

Intake of foods containing high levels of cholesterol harms human health, and an increase in the intake of dietary fibre (DF) may mitigate these negative effects. The co-products obtained from fruit juice extraction (lemon, grapefruit and pomegranate), lemon ice-cream production and tiger nut “horchata” (beverage) have been used for the production of fibre-rich extracts used as dietary fibre sources. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of these fibre source additions on cholesterol retention during the in vitro digestion of pork patties. The control patties were prepared without fibre addition and for the rest of patties a 10% of each DF was added. The pork patties were then passed through an in vitro digestion model that simulated the composition of the mouth, stomach and small intestine juices. After digestion and centrifugation the product separated into 3 phases (oily, aqueous and pellet phase). The effect of each DF on the phase distribution and the amount of cholesterol retained in each phase were evaluated. All DFs studied showed an increase in the cholesterol retained in the pellet phase. The pomegranate DF showed a better result (32% cholesterol retained in the pellet phase). The application of these fibre-rich extracts in food elaboration processes due to their healthy properties could be very interesting if one of the most important properties that can be highlighted is their ability to adsorb cholesterol.