## 3 Results and Discussion
### The Polyphenolic Content Changes
It has been confirmed that polyphenol-polysaccharide conjugates can take, among others, the form of neutral arabinocalatans, which are cross-linked with monomeric and dimeric hydroxycinnamate residues with molecular weights of 108 and 157 kDa [23]. It can be concluded that heat treatment breaks, for example, ester bonds between polyphenolic compounds and carbohydrates in cell walls [24]. As a result, polyphenolic compounds released from the cell wall dissolve into the water during cooking, which is the reason for the low content of polyphenolic compounds in red pepper after the cooking process. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**R-Stage**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Processing**} & **FRAP** & **Reducing Sugars** & **DB in Fresh Mass** \\  & & **FeSO\({}_{4}\)\(\upmu\)M/g d.b.** & **GE mg/g d.b.** & **(\%)** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{G} & C & 10.5 \(\pm\) 0.4 a & 4.2 \(\pm\) 0.2 a & 8.0 \(\pm\) 0.4 b \\  & B & 27.4 \(\pm\) 0.7 c & 4.7 \(\pm\) 0.1 b & 6.5 \(\pm\) 0.3 a \\  & M & 17.0 \(\pm\) 0.1 b & 4.1 \(\pm\) 0.2 a & 12.7 \(\pm\) 0.1 c \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Y} & C & 19.93 \(\pm\) 1.64 a & 5.6 \(\pm\) 0.1 b & 7.80 \(\pm\) 0.14 a \\  & B & 20.11 \(\pm\) 0.04 a & 5.5 \(\pm\) 0.1 b & 6.90 \(\pm\) 0.42 a \\  & M & 22.91 \(\pm\) 0.89 a & 3.5 \(\pm\) 0.1 a & 15.10 \(\pm\) 0.42 b \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{R} & C & 39.79 \(\pm\) 1.05 b & 4.4 \(\pm\) 0.1 c & 10.1 \(\pm\) 0.0 a \\  & B & 3.66 \(\pm\) 0.23 a & 1.1 \(\pm\) 0.0 a & 10.1 \(\pm\) 0.1a \\ \cline{1-1}  & M & 40.00 \(\pm\) 1.32 b & 3.2 \(\pm\) 0.1 b & 13.5 \(\pm\) 0.5 b \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{3}{c}{R-stage} & *** & *** & *** \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{Processing} & *** & *** & *** \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{R-stage \(\times\) processing} & *** & *** & *** \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* R-stage—ripening stage; G—green pepper; Y—yellow pepper; R—red pepper; C—control; B—boiling; M—microwaving; GE—glucose equivalent; DB—dry basis. Lowercase letters mean statistically significant difference between samples for same R-stage (\(p=0.05\)); ***\(\to<0.001\).  
\end{table} 
Table 2: Reducing capacity and dry mass content of bell peppers of different ripening stages after boiling and microwaving. On the other hand, polyphenolic compounds (mainly phenolic acids) may be so strongly bound to protein and carbohydrate molecules present in the cell walls of green pepper tissues that the heat treatment process does not break the ester bonds between polyphenic compounds and carbohydrates but only weakens them and causes subsequent breaking in the homogenization and extraction step (assisted by the movement of the extraction liquid). The structure of unripe fruits (high content of protopectin, which is responsible for the hardness of the internal structure in unripe fruits) impacts the leaching process of the intracellular content in the case of green peppers, resulting in smaller loss comparing yellow and red peppers [25]. Probably for the same reason, the oxidation process (by polyphenol oxidase) of released polyphenols after cooking green peppers is probably much weaker [26]. In our study, we observed a reduction in the total content of polyphenic compounds in red peppers due to microwaving (15.37 GAE \(\upmu\)M/g d.b) relative to the control (17.26 GAE \(\upmu\)M/g d.b). In a study by [PERSON] et al., it was shown that the microwave drying process of fresh red peppers causes a significant reduction in the content of polyphenic compounds (from an amount of about 2650 mg/100 g d.b. to 1400 mg/100 g d.b.) [27]. On the other hand, in the research carried out on field tomato (_Solanum lycopersicum L._), it was shown that the microwave treatment process conducted for 5 min caused a 3,6-fold increase in the total amount of polyphenic compounds compared to the unprocessed raw material (from 1.92 to 6.955 mg GAE g\({}^{-1}\) f.b.) [28]. [PERSON] et al.