THE INFLUENCE OF ADDITION OF DEFATTED BLACKCURRANT SEEDS ON PRO-HEALTH CONSTITUENTS AND TEXTURE OF CEREAL EXTRUDATES DOROTA GUMUL 1,4 , RAFAL ZIOBRO 1 , TOMASZ ZIE ˛BA 2 and EDWARD RÓJ 3 1 Department of Carbohydrate Technology, University of Agriculture, Balicka 122, Krakow 30-149, Poland 2 Department of Food Storage and Technology, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland 3 Fertilizers Research Institute, Supercritical Extraction Department, Pulawy, Poland 4 Corresponding author. TEL: +48-12-6624771; FAX: +48-12-6624747; EMAIL: rrgumul@cyf-kr.edu.pl Received for Publication November 15, 2010 Accepted for Publication October 3, 2011 doi:10.1111/j.1745-4557.2011.00418.x ABSTRACT Extrudates used in the study were prepared on the base of cornmeal (100%) – control, which was in 10, 30 and 50% replaced by defatted seeds of blackcurrant, which were a by-product of supercritical fluid extraction, used for oil production. The aim of the study was to check the influence of the level of defatted blackcurrant seeds, on texture and chemical composition of the obtained extrudates. Special attention was paid to pro-health constituents, i.e., dietary fiber, polyphenols, fla- vonoids and anthocyanins. The addition of defatted seeds resulted in an increase of polyphenol content, and antioxidant activity, and the rise in the level of flavonoids and soluble dietary fiber as compared with control. The enrichment of extrudates in pro-health components, as well as improvement of sensory score, suggests that 10% addition of defatted blackcurrant seeds is a suitable level for preparation of extruded fruit-cereal snacks. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The study demonstrates that defatted blackcurrant seeds could be a good, natural source of bioactive components in cereal snacks produced by extrusion. The sug- gested level of this component, optimal from sensory and dietary point of view, is 10%. INTRODUCTION Dietary fiber and polyphenols are important pro-health com- ponents, which should be present in the human diet. Dietary fiber, especially its soluble fraction, plays an important role in human nutrition, because it lowers blood cholesterol, reduces risk of cardiovascular disease, prevents colorectal cancer and exerts other pro-health activities (Anderson 2003; Esposito et al. 2005; Bravo 2007). Polyphenols constitute the main group of plant antioxidants, and thus play an important role in preventing cardiovascular diseases, and several types of tumors (Astley 2003; Scalbert et al. 2005). The content of soluble fiber and polyphenols in cereals is usually low (Ragaee et al. 2006; Fardet et al. 2008), in contrast to berry fruits, which contain high levels of those bioactive compounds (Piesiewicz and Bartnikowska 1997; Borowska 2003; Szajdek and Borowska 2008). Such a beneficial composition is not only typical for fresh berry fruits, but also for the off-products obtained in various branches of food industry, such as pomace (Hilz et al. 2005), and defatted seeds (Rój et al. 2009). The last product is obtained during oil extraction with super- critical carbon dioxide, and has a high pro-health potential as an additive, because of high amounts of dietary fiber and polyphenols. Supercritical fluid extraction with CO2 is con- sidered to be a safe method in food processing, because it does not require the use of toxic solvents and high temperatures (Brunner 2005; Pereira and Meireles 2010). It seems that the valuable off-products obtained during oil extraction from various plant materials should be utilized as a source of important bioactive compounds in the food industry. Recently, a successful trial to use defatted strawberry and blackcurrant seeds as functional ingredients for gluten-free Journal of Food Quality ISSN 1745-4557 395 Journal of Food Quality 34 (2011) 395–402 © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.