Antioxidant activity and sensory evaluation of a cold dairy-based beverage enriched with Sargassum polycystum C. Agardh extract in sunflower oil

Natural based functional food and beverages have gained market interest in the lastdecade. Functional beverages, especially those enriched with nutrients and bioactivecompounds, are of particular interest. Maintaining the nutritional or bioactive activity ofthese components along with their sensory attributes in the final product remains to be achallenge. Health benefits from bioactive substances, like fucoxanthin and phlorotannins,in marine algae makes it a promising commodity of an archipelago country. However,nutritional components, their stability, and an understanding of their nutritional andbioactive component availability require further investigation. Here we prospected naturaland sustainable antioxidant additives from brown algae, Sargassum polycystum C Agardh,to enrich a cold dairy-based beverage. Food-grade extraction of S. polycystum was doneby using 96% Ethanol to macerate dried powder algal. Identification of fucoxanthin in theextract was performed using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)(Prominance Shimadzu). We employed the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl method toquantify the antioxidant activity of extract alone and extract in three beverageformulations containing 0.02, 0.05, and 0.1 mg/cup S. polycystum extract. Sensoryevaluation and viscosity analysis comparing our product to the commercially availableproduct was also performed. Results showed that the combination of S. polycystum extractwith sunflower oil was able to maintain antioxidant activity when stored at 4°C.Formulation 2 of dairy-based beverages passed the sensory evaluation. This study was thefirst to report the application of S. polycystum extract on a cold dairy-based beverage. Thisproduct was developed considering the low stability of the bioactive compound,fucoxanthin. More comprehensive sensory evaluation and optimization for large scaleproduction are highly required.