Published in Scientific Papers. Series A. Agonomy., Vol. LVI
Written by Éva BÓDI, Judit REMENYIK, Andrea NEMES, Judit HOMOKI, Ferenc PELES, István FEKETE, Béla KOVÁCS
In this present study, we prepared selenium-enriched food sprouts, where the antioxidant capacity was analyzed, and we also determined their microbiological status. When we were about to decide which micronutrients to use during treatments, we took into account the fact that we can take in only a small amount of selenium by consuming food. During our research we wanted the following question to be answered: If sprouts are treated with increasing concentration of selenium, does it have any effect on the original antioxidant capacity of the sprouts, which is mainly due to high vitamin content of sprouts. Furthermore, we think it is important to make microbiological analysis, because germination conditions, for example temperature, pH, all this will create an ideal environment for the growth of microorganisms. So our goal was to determine how the selenium concentration that affects the total plate count, coliform bacteria count and Staphylococcus aureus count of sprouts. We determined the aboriginal antioxidant capacity of sprout with the PHOTOCHEM chemiluminometer and we applied pour plate technique for the mapping of the mycrobiological state of sprouts. Experimental results are evaluated, that increasing concentrations of selenite or selenate treatment had an effect primarily on water-soluble antioxidant capacity of sprouts. The water-soluble antioxidant capacity of wheat sprout was much higher than the measured values in pea sprout, this may be linked to what we measured. That is much higher ascorbic acid content in the case of wheat sprout, which is well known as one of the most important compounds with antioxidant properties of wheat sprout. As a result of microbiological research we come to the conclusion, that the highest concentrations of selenite or selenate treatment have a relative significant anti-microbial effect in the case of wheat sprouts. Coliform and total plate count showed no clear decreasing tendency, although the values of treatments in both cases were below the control values.
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antioxidant capacity
