Bee pollen is becoming an important product thanks to its nutritional properties, including\na high content of bioactive compounds such as essential amino acids, antioxidants, and vitamins.\nFresh bee pollen has a high water content (15%ââ?¬â??30% wt %), thus it is a good substrate for\nmicroorganisms. Traditional conservation methods include drying in a hot air chamber and/or\nfreezing. These techniques may significantly affect the pollen organoleptic properties and its content\nof bioactive compounds. Here, a new conservation method, microwave drying, is introduced\nand investigated. The method implies irradiating the fresh pollen with microwaves under vacuum,\nin order to reduce the water content without reaching temperatures capable of thermally deteriorating\nimportant bioactive compounds. The method was evaluated by taking into account the nutritional\nproperties after the treatment. The analyzed parameters were phenols, flavonoids, with special\nreference to rutin content, and amino acids. Results showed that microwave drying offers important\nadvantages for the conservation of bee pollen. Irrespective of microwave power and treatment time,\nphenol and flavonoid content did not vary over untreated fresh pollen. Similarly, rutin content was\nunaffected by the microwave drying, suggesting that the microwave-assisted drying could be a\npowerful technology to preserve bioprotective compounds in fresh pollen.
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