The vegetable/meat soups are popular in our diet for their appealing taste and nutritional value. More recently, the health benefits of their nutrients and phytochemicals, such as flavonoids found in vegetables, are well recognized. However, the presence of flavonoids in foods including soups subjected to thermal processing would very likely translates into a cascade of complex chemical reactions. In foods, several fundamental reactions including Maillard reaction, lipid peroxidation and caramelization are of critical importance, contributing significantly to thermal generation of flavor and color, nutritional change, and formation of toxic/beneficial components. Flavonoids were originally considered to simply act as antioxidants to modulate oxidation processes associating with the above reactions. In recent years, emerging evidence tends to support the notion that certain flavonoids could exhibit probably more important roles pertinent to their nucleophilic activity. Thus, these flavonoids might directly interact with electrophilic intermediary compounds that arise at different stages of the Maillard and/or lipid peroxidation reaction to form novel chemicals which may affect the potential health benefits of the final food products. Here we report the stability and chemical change of quercetin, a major flavonoid of onion in beef soup, and the induced new bioactivity. This research helps to figure out the reactivity and bioactivity change of quercetin and related compounds under real food thermal processing, providing guidance for similar type of phenolic compounds. It  also help us to discover new bioactives from soups and fully enjoy the health benefits of soups.

Flavonoids in onion beef soups: Stability, reactivity and potential health benefits

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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