Sugar beet pectin as a natural carrier for curcumin, a water-insoluble bioactive for food and beverage enrichment: Formation and characterization

Zagury, Yedidya; David, Shlomit; Edelman, Ravit; Hazan Brill, Roni; Livney, Yoav D.

Sugar beet pectin as a natural carrier for curcumin, a water-insoluble bioactive for food and beverage enrichment: Formation and characterization

2021

Zagury, Yedidya | David, Shlomit | Edelman, Ravit | Hazan Brill, Roni | Livney, Yoav D.

Food and beverages enrichment with water-insoluble health-promoting nutraceuticals is important, but technologically challenging. Sugar beet pectin (SBP) is a natural dietary fiber with high emulsifying capacity. However, its potential as a natural encapsulator of hydrophobic nutraceuticals for beverage enrichment, has hardly been explored. Curcumin is a potent antioxidant with numerous attributed health benefits, but very low aqueous-solubility. We herein explored SBP as a carrier for solubilization and protection of curcumin (CUR). Using spectrofluorimetry, the CUR-SBP binding constant determined was (6.74 ± 0.5) ∙ 10⁵M⁻¹. As CUR:SBP molar ratio increased from 14:1 to 140:1, CUR encapsulation capacity increased from 14.5 ± 0.8 to 127.4 ± 0.4 mg CUR/gSBP, and encapsulation efficiency moderately decreased from ~100% to 86 ± 7%. The encapsulation in SBP dramatically decreased CUR particle size, from >17 μm to <0.5 μm, in average, and conferred substantial protection to CUR during simulated shelf-life, decreasing the decay rate constant ~7 fold. Therefore, SBP is a potent natural encapsulator for hydrophobic nutraceuticals for food and even clear beverage enrichment.

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