Antioxidant capacity of cookies with non-modified and modified sugar beet fibers: chemometric and statistical analysis

Recent studies have confirmed the possibility of an insoluble material to carry out a marked antioxidant activity by a solid–liquid interaction, and in such way opened a new chapter for dietary fiber application in food industry as a functional unit with radical scavenging capacity. Therefore, this paper investigates the possibility of improving the antioxidant activity of cookies with addition of sugar beet fibers. The chemometric analysis was carried out on the experimentally obtained data of the antioxidant activity of the cookies with modified and non-modified sugar beet fibers compared to the cookies with commercially available dietary fiber (Fibrex ® ) produced in the Nordic Sugar A/S factory, Sweden. The hierarchical cluster analysis and the sum of ranking differences were applied. The introduction of modified and non-modified sugar beet fibers in the cookies formulation showed promising results regarding the cookies EC 50 values decline compared to the control samples. Cookies with addition of modified sugar beet fibers showed the best antioxidant activity in the first 4 weeks. Cookies with Fibrex ® fibers exhibited the highest antioxidant activity.