Carotenoids, Tocols, and retinols during the Pasta making Process

This chapter reports the ‘state of the art’ of the influence of the pasta-making process on tocols, carotenoids, and retinols. Available literature reveals that processing may influence the levels of these compounds in the final products, depending on several physical and chemical factors, such as light, temperature, pH, O2, food composition, presence of antioxidants, and the different extent of lipoxygenase activity in the kernel. During the pasta making process the degradation of tocols and carotenoids is mostly limited to the kneading step, where several physical-chemical and enzymatic factors seem to exert an important role in determining their degradation, while significant losses during drying treatments are observed only at high temperatures. An increase in geometric isomerization from the trans to the cis forms of carotenoids and retinols is also reported. The pasta-making process does not seem to influence the bioaccessibility of tocols and carotenoids from durum wheat pasta. The use of a suitable procedure for the extraction and determination of carotenoids, tocols, and retinols from cereal matrices is also discussed.