Market prospects for chocolate products enriched with functional ingredients
Bakery and flour confectionery products with functional properties are the most effective way to include the necessary biologically active components in the diet of certain population groups. The body of a woman during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and a newborn dependent on the mother's nutrition, is most sensitive to toxic effects, therefore it is necessary to conduct additional studies of the food products being developed, especially with the inclusion of new components, for biosafety using various biological systems. Higher vertebrates are used for such studies. The authors propose the use of an alternative model of Danio rerio, which has a number of advantages over standard model organisms. As a result of experimental work, it was revealed that the functional components (persimmon fruits, feijoa, fiber and jerusalem artichoke syrup and lycopene) when applied to bakery and flour confectionery products are biosafety according to the results of feeding the experimental group of Danio rerio during 30 days without causing death and without disrupting the growth process. The study of genotoxicity on D. rerio blood erythrocytes showed that replacing part of the diet with bakery and flour confectionery products by 25 % did not cause a significant increase in the number of micronuclei and did not give a genotoxic effect. The structure of intestinal tissues did not differ from the control. In fish that received bakery products with the addition of lycopene as part of the diet, an increase in the number of goblet cells was noted, which may indicate an improvement in the secretory activity of the intestine. Feeding fish with functional confectionery products led to the appearance of adaptive reactions in the intestine, expressed in dilatation of lamina propria. The approbation of the use of Danio rerio as a model for assessing the safety of bakery and flour confectionery products demonstrated the possibility of evaluating parameters such as genotoxicity and histology of the gastrointestinal tract. These objects can be recommended when assessing the biosafety of new types of functional food