Valorisation of blood protein from livestock to produce haem iron-fortified hydrolysates with antioxidant activity Berraquero García, Carmen Almecija Rodríguez, María Carmen Guadix Escobar, Emilia María Pérez Gálvez, Antonio Raúl Antioxidant activity Blood protein Enzymatic hydrolysis Haem iron This work was supported by the project PY20_00021 from the Andalusian Regional Government, Spain. The authors would like to thank APC Europe (Barcelona, Spain) for kindly providing the porcine blood meal powder employed for the experiments. Blood is the main by-product from slaughterhouses bearing high levels of suspended solids (18% w/w) and BOD5 (250 000–375 000 mg O2/L), which makes difficult its handling and disposal. This study proposes the valorisation of blood protein to produce enzymatic hydrolysates rich in haemic iron and antioxidant peptides. Haemic iron presents higher bioavailability compared to its inorganic form, but its incorporation into foodstuffs is restrained by its high tendency to oxidation. Six commercial proteases of animal, plant and bacterial origin were employed to produce the enzymatic hydrolysates. Subtilisin and trypsin treatments were able to recover 70% of haem iron as soluble peptides, in contrast with plant enzymes where the proteolysis was reduced. Moreover, some enzymatic treatments led to hydrolysates with high levels of some in vitro antioxidant activities such as radical scavenging (Protamex, IC50 3.52 mg/mL) or metal chelating activity (trypsin, IC50 0.27 mg/mL). We conclude the enzymatic valorisation of blood protein increases haemic iron bioavailability and produces antioxidant peptides. Both properties are of interest for their use as iron fortification supplements. 2022-03-08T13:39:22Z 2022-03-08T13:39:22Z 2022-02-09 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Berraquero-García, C... [et al.] (2022), Valorisation of blood protein from livestock to produce haem iron-fortified hydrolysates with antioxidant activity. Int J Food Sci Technol. [https://doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.15616] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/73235 10.1111/ijfs.15616 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España John Wiley & Sons