Bioactive Compounds and Antioxidant Activity of Selected Pumpkin Cultivars: Impact of Cooking Treatments

Abstract

Pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) undergoes several cooking processes before consumption, leading to alterations in both its physical attributes and chemical composition. Therefore, the objective of this work is to evaluate the effect of different cooking treatments (convection oven, steaming, microwaving, and boiling) on bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity in different pumpkin cultivars: Cuyano INTA, Dorado INTA, Paquito INTA, and Cokena INTA. The results showed high variability in the concentration of bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity between the cultivars (p < 0.001). The stability of bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity after cooking was found to be genotype × cooking treatment interaction dependent (p < 0.001). Nevertheless, the free radical scavenging activity exhibited by cooked pumpkins was found to be high, in the range of 69.93 to 256.44 µM Trolox g−1 fw.