Kinetic evaluation of colour, texture, polyphenols and antioxidant capacity of Irish York cabbage after blanching treatment

York cabbage was blanched between 80 and 100 degrees C with an increment of 5 degrees C for up to 14 min and kinetics of the different physicochemical properties were studied. Significant reductions in the texture, colour, polyphenols (PPs) and antioxidant (AO) capacity were observed due to blanching. Total phenolic and flavonoid content retained ranged from 19.6-24.5% to 22.0-25.7%, respectively. Heavy losses in the AO capacity of 74.0-82.0% also occurred as a result of blanching. Blanching caused a significant reduction in firmness of 24.0-73.2% and a similar trend was also observed for colour. Kinetic evaluation of degradation was carried out for all the studied quality parameters. The fractional conversion first-order reaction model showed a good fit for the different studied parameters, with coefficients of determination ranging from 0.892 to 0.992, except for texture and colour, which followed first order and zero order kinetics, respectively. The temperature effect followed the Arrhenius law, with activation energies for polyphenolic content, AO capacity, colour and texture calculated as 9.22-11.5, 9.05-35.05, 15.73 and 33.8 kJ/mol K, respectively. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.