Bioaccessibility of Ca, Mg, Mn and Cu from whole grain tea-biscuits: Impact of proteins, phytic acid and polyphenols.

Levels of some essential minerals (Ca, Mg, Cu and Mn) were determined in ten different types of experimentally prepared hard biscuits. In relation to the wheat flour-based reference sample, other investigated samples were enriched with different ratios of integral raw materials of different origin or various dietary fibers in view of improving their functionality and nutritive quality. The goal of the research was to evaluate enriched biscuits as additional sources of calcium, magnesium, copper and manganese in nutrition and to investigate if the modifications of wheat flour based biscuit composition significantly change the amounts of total and bioaccessible minerals in the final product. Since our results indicated significant changes of mineral bioaccessibility among the samples, obtained results were correlated to the content of proteins, phytic acid and polyphenols for the sake of assessing their impact as limiting factors of mineral bioaccessibility in these types of foods.