Antioxidant in Foods From India

International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition,
June 2007; 58(4): 250 260
Antioxidant activity of commonly consumed plant

foods of India: contribution of their phenolic content
RITA SAXENA1, K. VENKAIAH2, P. ANITHA1, L. VENU1, &

M. RAGHUNATH1
1
Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, and 2Division of Statistics, National Institute of
Nutrition, Hyderabad, India
Int J Food Sci Nutr Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/02/15
Abstract
Antioxidants are important in protection against hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases
and cancer. Polyphenols are potent antioxidants in plant foods, but their contribution to such
protective effects is yet to be established. This study attempted to generate a database on the
antioxidant activity (AOA) and phenolic content (PC) of some plant foods commonly
consumed in India and to assess the contribution of the PC to their AOA. Plant foods
belonging to different food groups such as cereals, legumes, oil seeds, oils, green leafy
vegetables, other vegetables, spices, roots and tubers were analysed for AOA and PC. AOA was
the highest in black pepper (0.43 mg food required for 50% inhibition of the coupled auto-
oxidation of b-carotene and linoleic acid in a mixture in vitro ) and it had the highest PC (191 mg
For personal use only.
gallic acid equivalent/100 g food). The AOA (18.4 mg) as well as the PC (not detectable) were
the lowest in sunflower oil. PC in oil seeds was higher than that in the oil, which could be due to
the hydrophilic nature of phenolics and suggests the need for greater use of oil seeds than oils. A
significant correlation was observed between the AOA and PC of the plant foods studied in
general (r/ /0.465), but the coefficient of correlation and determination were high only in
spices (r/ /0.86 and r2 /74%, respectively) and dehusked legumes (r/ /0.65 and
r2 /42.2%, respectively). The results suggest that phenolics may contribute significantly to
the AOA of some plant foods, such as spices and dehusked legumes.
Keywords: Antioxidant activity, phenolic content, Indian plant foods
Introduction
Molecular and cellular damage due to reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen
species is widely believed to be the major cause of chronic degenerative diseases,
including cardiovascular diseases and cancer. The detrimental effects of oxidative
stress are neutralized by the antioxidant status of the organism consisting of enzymatic
and non-enzymatic components. While the enzymatic antioxidants are intrinsic to the
organism, the non-enzymatic components are both of intrinsic and exogenous nature.
The non-enzymatic antioxidants consist of nutrient and non-nutrient compounds.
Some non-nutrient antioxidants like glutathione and coenzyme Q are mainly of
endogenous origin, whereas a majority of nutrient and non-nutrient types of non-
enzymatic antioxidants are derived from the foods we consume. While vitamins such
Correspondence: M. Raghunath, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, National Institute of

Nutrition, Jamai Osmania P O, Hyderabad 500 007, India. Tel: 91 40 27008921, ext 235. Fax: 91 40
27019074. E-mail: manchalar@yahoo.com
ISSN 0963-7486 print/ISSN 1465-3478 online # 2007 Informa UK Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/09637480601121953
Antioxidant activity of plant foods 251
as vitamin A, such as C, such as E and minerals such as zinc and selenium are some
of the important nutrients with antioxidant activity (AOA), there are a variety of
non-nutrient substances such as carotenoids, flavanoids, phenolics, polyphenols and
uric acid that are potent antioxidants (Papas 1999). There are many more minor
components in plant foods, such as sulphides, thiols, saponins, lignans and inositol,
which have excellent antioxidant activity (Sadler et al. 1999).
Among non-nutrients, polyphenols and their byproducts are the potent antiox-
idants, ubiquitous in plants. Polyphenols have putative applications as food
antioxidants and preventive agents against numerous diseases (Selga et al. 2004).
Several human studies and a variety of studies in experimental animals have suggested
that polyphenols possess significant chemopreventive properties, perhaps due to their
antioxidant activity (Ahmad and Mukhtar 1999). Polyphenols present in fruits,
vegetables and herbs appear to be responsible, at least partly, for many of their
reported protective effects against a variety of diseases, including cancer and

cardiovascular disease (Moskaug et al. 2005).
Abundant literature exists on the content of different antioxidants in a variety of
plant foods (Devasagayam et al. 2004). However, a sum of all the antioxidants in a
food need not necessarily represent its net antioxidant activity, perhaps due to
additive, synergistic and antagonistic interactions among nutrients, oxidants and
antioxidants present in them. In addition, different kinds of domestic processing to
which most of these foods are subjected to, before they are consumed, could affect
their AOA. Thus, determination of the AOA of the foods is of practical importance.
Plant foods form the bulk of Indian diets, which consist of a variety of cereals,
legumes, oilseeds, oils, green leafy and other vegetables, roots and tubers and spices.
However, the AOA of most of these foods is not yet known, let alone the contribution
of their phenolic content (PC) to their AOA. Based on the literature available, we
hypothesized that phenolics are important contributors to the AOA of plant foods.
This study has been conducted to validate/negate this hypothesis as well as to generate
a database on the AOA and PC of some plant foods commonly consumed in India.
Materials and methods

Chemicals and reagents
All the fine chemicals (b-carotene, linoleic acid, Tween 20 and gallic acid) were
purchased from M/S Sigma Chemical Co. (St Louis, MO, USA). The solvents and
other chemicals used in these studies were purchased from M/S Qualigens Chemicals
(Mumbai, India) and were of analytical grade.
Food samples analysed

Twenty-one commonly consumed plant foods belonging to nine different food groups
were analysed for their AOA and PC in this study. The list of foods analysed and their
botanical names are presented in Table I.
Collection and processing of foods

Considering the varietal differences usually observed in the content of different
nutrients and antioxidants in plant foods, market samples of these foods were analysed
252 R. Saxena et al.
Table I. Commonly consumed plant foods analysed for their AOA and PC.
Food group Food stuff Botanical name
Cereals Rice Oryza sativa

Wheat Triticum aestivum
Whole legumes/pulses Black gram Phaseolus mungo roxb
Bengal gram Cicer arietinum
Green gram Phaseolus aureus Roxb
Moth Phaseolus aconitifolius, Jacq
Dehusked legumes/split Black gram Phaseolus mungo roxb
legumes/dhals Red gram Cajanus cajan
Green leafy Vegetables Amaranth Amaranthus gangeticus

Spinach Spinacia oleracea
Other vegetables Bitter gourd Momordica charantia

Tomato Lycopersicon esculentum
Roots and tubers Carrot Daucus carota
Onion Allium cepa
Spices Black pepper Piper nigrum
Garlic Allium sativum
Ginger Zinziber officinale
Oil seeds Groundnut Arachis hypogaea
Sesame Sesamum indicum
Oils Groundnut oil Arachis hypogaea
Sunflower oil Helianthus annuus
to account for these differences to the extent possible. For this purpose, three samples
of each of the commonly consumed foods were purchased from three local markets
located in geographically distant areas of the twin cities of Hyderabad and
Secunderabad (Andhra Pradesh, India); namely, Mehdipatnam, Secunderabad and
Uppal.
After cleaning the food samples of the extraneous contaminants, equal quantities of
the edible portions of each food (three samples) purchased from a given market were
pooled and the pooled sample was analysed for the AOA and PC. Thus, for each food
we analysed three samples, each of which is a pooled sample of three samples
purchased from a given market.
One hundred grams of the edible portion of the pooled food sample (of dry foods
such as cereals, whole legumes, dehusked and split legumes, oil seeds and spices) were
finely powdered in a domestic grinder and 1 g of this powder was used for the
extraction of the AOA and PC.
About 100 g finely chopped, pooled fresh vegetables were homogenized in a
domestic grinder using appropriate amounts of municipal drinking water. The volume
of the homogenate equivalent to 1 g raw food was used for the extraction of the AOA
and PC as described below.
Extraction of foods for AOA and PC

The AOA and PC of all the foods studied (except oils) were extracted according to
Emmons et al. (1999). Briefly, methanol and water were added to the homogenized
food sample to make it to a final concentration of 70% methanol, and the volume of
70% methanol was at least 10 times that of the food powder/homogenate used.
Considering that oils are poorly miscible with methanol, 1 g pooled oil sample was
extracted with a mixture of chloroform: methanol (70:30 v/v) as reported earlier
(Fayaz et al. 2005). Thus, in these studies, all the food samples except oils were
extracted with 70% methanol.
In general, food samples were shaken with solvent mixture in a flask shaker for 2 h at
room temperature and were centrifuged for 1 h at 6000 /g at 48C. The supernatant
was collected, the volume measured and was then stored as the extract at /208C. The
samples were analysed within 10 days of extraction for the AOA and PC as described
below.
Determination of the AOA

Considering that oxidation of lipids is the earliest and most significant component of
the oxidative damage in vivo, the ability of the food extracts to inhibit the coupled
auto-oxidation of b-carotene and linoleic acid in a mixture was measured according to
Emmons et al. (1999). Briefly, 2 mg b-carotene was dissolved in 4 ml chloroform, and
600 ml of this solution was added to 44 ml linoleic acid and 400 ml Tween 20 in an
amber-coloured bottle and mixed well. Chloroform was evaporated from this mixture
under a stream of nitrogen gas, and to this was added 100 ml double-distilled water
into which gaseous oxygen was passed for 10 min just before use.
Sample extracts were taken in 10, 25, 50 ml aliquots and the volume was made up to
50 ml with 70% methanol. Three millilitres of the b-carotene /linoleic acid mixture
was added rapidly to each sample, vortexed and the optical density (OD) read
immediately (0 time) at 470 nm in a Spectronic AquaMate spectrophotometer
(Thermo Electron Corporation, Waltham, MA, USA). The mixture was ten
incubated for 60 min in a water bath at 508C and the OD read after incubation.
The b-carotene linoleic acid mixture incubated with 50 ml of 70% methanol at 508C
for 60 min was used as the negative control (i.e. 100% coupled auto-oxidation of
b-carotene and linoleic acid in the mixture). Since the decrease in OD over time is
nonlinear, the antioxidant activity of the food extract was calculated from the ODs
measured at 0 and 60 min of incubation using the following equation.
% AOA 100 (DRc DRs)=DRc
where AOA is the antioxidant activity, and DRc and DRs are the degradation rates of
the control and the sample, which are calculated from the equation:
DR ln (a=b)=60
where a is the optical absorbance at 0 min and b that at the end of 60 min of
incubation at 508C.
As large variations were observed in the percentage AOA of different foods, an
attempt was made to keep the AOA values expressed in a narrow range. For this
purpose, it was considered prudent to express the AOA of foods as the amount of raw
food (in milligrams) required for 50% inhibition of the coupled auto-oxidation of
b-carotene and linoleic acid under the conditions of the assay. It therefore follows that,
in these studies, the higher the value for the AOA, the lower is its antioxidant activity.
To facilitate this computation we have analysed each food extract in triplicate and have
used appropriate dilutions of the extracts so that their percentage AOA in the assay
was between 25% and 65%.
Determination of total PC
The total PC of the food was determined in the extract using Folin-Ciocalteu phenol
reagent according to Emmons et al. (1999). Briefly, appropriate aliquots of the
extracts were taken and the volume made up to 125 ml with 70% methanol. To this
were added an additional 400 ml methanol and then mixed with 75 ml of 2 N Folin-
Ciocalteu reagent, followed by 400 ml of 20% sodium carbonate solution. The
reaction was allowed to proceed for 15 min at room temperature. The samples were
diluted with 1.25 ml double-distilled water, were vortexed and were centrifuged at
1500 /g for 15 min at room temperature. The OD of the supernatant was measured
at 725 nm in a Spectronic AquaMate spectrophotometer. The total PC of the food is

expressed as milligrams of gallic acid (GA) equivalents in 100 g of the edible portion
of that foodstuff.
Statistical analysis
Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS statistical package (version 11.5).
The PC and AOA of the different foods analysed are expressed as the mean 9/
standard deviation. Data were analysed statistically using one-way analysis of variance
(ANOVA) followed by a post hoc multiple range test to ascertain the significance of
differences in the mean AOA and PC values among different categories of foods
analysed. The significance level was considered at P /0.05 and P/0.01. The Pearson
rank correlation coefficient (r ) and non-parametric correlations such as Kendall’s tau
and Spearman’s rho were calculated appropriately between the AOA and PC of all
foods individually, group wise and as pooled sets.
Results and discussion

Antioxidant activity
Figure 1 shows the AOA of different categories of plant foods analysed in this study.
There was a wide variation in the AOA among the three pooled samples of any food
analysed, perhaps indicating large varietal differences in the AOA of plant foods. It is
evident from Figure 1 that the mean AOA was the highest in black pepper (0.43 mg)
and the least in sunflower oil (18.40 mg). Whole and split legumes ranked second in
AOA among the foods studied, while vegetables including green leafy vegetables
(GLVs) had relatively low AOA. Accordingly, one-way ANOVA showed a significant
difference (P B/0.05) among the foods tested in their AOA when considered either
individually (f /8.13) or as different food groups (f /16.9).
Among cereals, wheat had higher AOA than rice and this is similar to the findings of
Adom and Liu (2002). Bengal gram had the highest AOA and black gram the least
AOA among whole legumes, while the AOA of green gram and moth beans lay
between them. The AOA of dehusked and split black gram and whole black gram were
comparable, while that of red gram dhal, a legume widely consumed in this part of
India, was slightly lower than that of black gram dhal. Nevertheless, legumes and
dhals had the second best AOA among all the plant foods studied here.
Figure 1. The AOA* of some plant foods commonly consumed in India.

Although groundnuts (2.3 mg) and sesame seeds (3.7 mg) had reasonably good
AOA, the AOA of groundnut oil (12.1 mg) and sunflower oil (18.4 mg) were the least
of all the foods tested. Our finding that groundnut and sunflower oils were poor in
their AOA is in agreement with Pellagrini et al. (2003) and Valavanidis et al. (2004),
who showed that peanut and sunflower oils had the least AOA compared with soybean
and olive oils. Considering that polyphenols, the potent antioxidants in plant foods,
are usually hydrophilic in nature, the low AOA of oils could be due to their poor
extraction from oil seeds into the oil. Indeed, the observation of Matthaus (2002) that
extracts from the fat-free residues of different oil seeds (whose oil was used for edible
purposes) had remarkable AOA seems to corroborate our finding. On the other hand,
it is possible that the chloroform:methanol mixture (70:30 v/v) could not extract the
antioxidants present in the oil and/or the extracted compounds had no activity in the
assay system used. It thus appears from our findings and the available literature that it
may be better to use oil seeds for developing AOA-rich recipes. Indeed, it is interesting
that in India groundnut and sesame are traditionally used for preparing dips
(chutnies), which could probably be considered as AOA-rich recipes.
Among GLVs, amaranth and spinach had similar AOA, while among other
vegetables, tomato had higher AOA than bitter gourd. On the other hand, onion
had higher AOA than carrot among roots and tubers. In this study, the AOA of GLVs,
other vegetables, roots and tubers decreased in the following order: amaranth
/spinach /tomato/onion /bitter gourd /carrot. Although the AOA of GLVs was
higher than that of other vegetables in the present study, it was intriguing that their
AOA was much lower than that of legumes and spices. These observations are in line
with those of Pellegrini et al. (2003) that the AOA of spinach was the highest among
the 34 vegetables studied, in which, tomato (sauce variety), tomato (salad variety) and
carrot ranked 16, 19 and 32, respectively. Indeed, Proteggente et al. (2002) also
ranked the AOA of spinach, onion and tomato in decreasing order. Thus, our results
on the AOA of GLVs and other vegetables appear to be in reasonable agreement with
the literature.
It is of interest to note that spices had the highest AOA among all the foods tested in
the present study. Black pepper had the highest AOA followed by ginger, while garlic
had the lowest AOA among the three spices tested. Indeed, our results are in
agreement with those of Shobana and Naidu (2000), who showed the highest AOA in
pepper, followed by ginger, garlic and onion. They are also inline with the findings of
Ahmed et al. (2000) that ginger was as effective an antioxidant as ascorbic acid, and
those of Betancor-Fernandez et al. (2003) who reported garlic to be poor in AOA.
Unlike Martinez-Tome et al. (2001), who reported comparable AOA among spices
and common food antioxidant additives, the AOA of spices observed in the present
study are lower than those reported earlier.
Total PC
Considering that the PC constitutes important antioxidants in plant foods, the PC of
plant foods was studied next. It is apparent from the results (expressed as milligrams
gallic acid equivalent per 100 g raw foodstuff) presented in Table II that there were
large variations in the PC of different foods analysed. The PC was the highest in black
pepper (191 mg), followed by ginger (111 mg), while oils had no detectable phenolic
content. Indeed, one-way ANOVA of the PC of all the foods considered individually
showed a significant difference (P B/0.05) among them (f ratio /39.1). Similar and
significant differences were also observed among the nine food groups in their PC, by
one-way ANOVA (f ratio /11.2 and P B/0.05).
In line with the findings of Adom and Liu (2002), we observed that the PC of wheat
was higher than that of rice. While Adom and Liu (2002) showed no variation in
the total PC among wheat varieties, Yu et al. (2003) reported significant variation in
the PC of wheat grown in different locations. In the present study, we found wide
variation in the PC of wheat and rice varieties purchased from three different markets,
perhaps indicating large varietal differences.
Whole legumes in general had higher PC than dehusked legumes. The PC of whole
green gram was the highest and that of moth beans the lowest, while the PC of Bengal
gram and whole black gram was in between them. Among dehusked/split legumes, the
PC of black gram was slightly higher than that of red gram. That the dehusked/split
legumes had lower PC than the whole legumes appears to suggest that the husk may
be rich in PC in these legumes. Although few data are available on the PC of the
legumes studied here, Nair et al. (1998) reported that kidney beans and soybeans had
lower, but significant, flavanoid content.
The PC of groundnuts and sesame seeds was comparable, whereas the groundnut
and sunflower oils had no measurable PC. These findings are in line with our
observations on their AOA and appear to suggest that polyphenols of oil seeds may not
be extracted in to oils. They also seem to suggest phenolics to be important
contributors to the AOA (inhibition of lipid peroxidation) of oil seeds. These
observations are in general agreement with those of Matthaus (2002), who showed
that fat-free residues of different oil seeds contained considerable amounts of phenolic
Table II. The PC of some plant foods commonly consumed in India.
PC (mg gallic acid equivalent

Food group/foodstuff in 100 g raw foodstuff)
Cereals
Rice 12.19/8.15
Wheat 24.09/5.53
Whole legumes (undehusked
legumes/pulses)
Black gram whole 59.69/6.79
Bengal gram whole 36.09/11.78
Green gram whole 69.49/3.74
Moth Beans 34.89/2.86
Dehusked legumes (dehusked legumes
and split legumes/dhals)

Black gram dhal 26.19/0.70
Red gram dhal 24.99/7.89
Oil seeds
Groundnut 95.89/15.60
Sesame 89.19/14.40
Oils
Groundnut oil Not detected
Sunflower oil Not detected
Green leafy vegetables
amaranth leaves 84.99/13.02
Spinach leaves 33.89/7.33

Other vegetables
Bitter gourd 53.99/11.98
Tomato 35.99/3.39
Root and tubers
Carrot 8.979/0.72
Onion 39.29/6.10
Spices
Black pepper 1919/41.90
Garlic 44.39/12.65
Ginger 1119/8.20
Values presented as the mean 9/ standard deviation (n/ 3). One-way ANOVA: f ratio for all foods
(considered individually), f/39.1, P B/0.05; f ratio for the food groups, f /11.2, P B/ 0.05.
compounds, those of Pellegrini et al. (2003) that fat-free residues of sunflower seeds
had above-average levels of phenolic compounds, and those of Huang et al. (2003),
who showed that peanut hull had strong AOA due to the high content of phenolic
compounds.
The PC was higher in amaranth leaves compared with spinach among GLVs, while
bitter gourd had a higher PC than tomato in the other vegetables group. Onion among
the roots and tubers had a higher PC than carrot. In this study, the PC of GLVs, other
vegetables, roots and tubers followed the order: amaranth /bitter gourd /onion /
tomato /spinach /carrot. These results are at variance with those of Minnogio et al.
(2003), who reported that tomatoes had high polyphenolic content and the most
powerful antioxidant potential.
Table III. Correlation between the AOA and PC in individual plant foods (on a fresh weight basis)
commonly consumed in India.
Food group/foodstuff Correlation coefficient (r )
Cereals
Rice 0.03
Wheat /0.98
Whole legumes (undehusked
legumes/pulses)
Black gram (whole) 0.87
Bengal gram (whole) /0.57
Green gram (whole) /0.61
Moth beans /0.94
Dehusked legumes (dehusked legumes
and split legumes/dhals)

Black gram /0.39
Red gram 0.92
Oil seeds
Groundnut /0.41
Sesame 0.10
Green leafy vegetables
Amaranth /0.98
Spinach 0.27
Other vegetables
Bitter gourd /0.996
Tomato /0.92
Roots and tubers
Carrot /0.87
Onion /0.96
Spices
Black pepper /0.88
Garlic /0.98
Ginger /0.32
n /3 for each food. None of the r values were significant statistically.
Among spices, black pepper had the highest PC and garlic the least, while the PC of
ginger was in between them. Our results in spices are in agreement with those of Nair
et al. (1998), who reported that ginger had a small but significant amount of
flavonoids.
Correlation between the PC and AOA of foods

To test our hypothesis that the PC in plant foods contributes significantly to
their AOA, it was considered pertinent to assess, first, the relationship, if any,
between the AOA and PC of the foods studied. For this purpose, correlation between
the PC and AOA of foods was assessed by Pearson rank correlation (r ) and non-
parametric correlations such as Kendall’s tau and Spearman’s rho. To assess the
contribution of the PC to the AOA of different foods, we computed the coefficient of
determination between these two parameters.
It is apparent that when all the foods studied were considered as one group, there
was a significant but modest correlation (r / /0.465, P B/0.01) between the PC and
AOA, and this modest correlation could be due to large variations observed both in
the PC and AOA of foods. That the coefficient of determination (r2) was only
21.6% appears to indicate that the contribution of PCs to the AOA (inhibition of
lipid peroxidation) of the plant foods studied may be marginal. Considering that
phenolics are just one among several antioxidants present in plant foods, it appears
reasonable that their contribution to the AOA may be less than that of other
antioxidants. The lack of a robust correlation could also be due to the possibility
that the PC may not be effective as antioxidants in inhibiting the coupled
auto-oxidation of b-carotene in the b-carotene linoleic acid mixture in the in vitro
system used.
Not withstanding this, since the AOA and PC appeared to go hand in hand
in some foods, we next assessed whether the PC contributes significantly to the
AOA of any particular group of foods. It was indeed interesting that the best
correlation (r / /0.86, coefficient of determination /74%) was observed in spices,
indicating that PC could be a significant and major contributor to the AOA of
spices. Although there was a good correlation between the PC and AOA in
dehusked/split legumes (r / /0.65, r2 /42.2%) it was not statistically significant,
probably due to the small sample size and/or wide variations observed in both
these parameters.
Interestingly, when we assessed the correlation between the AOA and PC in the
individual foods, it was observed (Table III) in some foods *such as wheat (r / /0.98),
moth beans (r / /0.94), amaranth (r / /0.98), bitter gourd (r / /0.99), onion
(r / /0.96), garlic (r / /0.98), tomato (r / /0.92), black pepper (r / /0.88) and
carrot (r / /0.87) *that there was a robust correlation between the PC and AOA,
suggesting that in these foods the PC may be an important contributor to their AOA.
That these robust correlation coefficients were not statistically significant could again be
due to the small sample size (n /3 pooled samples) of the foods analysed. Overall, the
correlation analyses indicate that the PC may be an important contributor to the AOA of
some, but not all, of the plant foods tested.
In general, this study indicates that spices have the highest AOA among the plant
foods studied. Since a large variety of spices are used in India, further studies are
needed with a large sample size to determine the AOA and PC of different spices and
to harness their use not only as taste enhancers, but also as AOA-rich supplements.
Although the quantity of spices that can be used is limited due to their strong and
pungent flavour, phenolics extracted from spices could be useful as natural
antioxidants.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr Kamala Krishnaswamy, former Director, National Institute of
Nutrition, for her keen interest and help rendered during the initiation of the study.
The authors would also like to thank Dr B. Sivakumar, former Director, National
Institute of Nutrition, for his kind support and encouragement during the course of
the study.
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Antioxidant in Foods From India

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Antioxidant in Foods From India

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International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition,

June 2007; 58(4): 250 260

Antioxidant activity of commonly consumed plant

RITA SAXENA1, K. VENKAIAH2, P. ANITHA1, L. VENU1, &

Keywords: Antioxidant activity, phenolic content, Indian plant foods

Correspondence: M. Raghunath, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, National Institute of

ISSN 0963-7486 print/ISSN 1465-3478 online # 2007 Informa UK Ltd

reported protective effects against a variety of diseases, including cancer and

Materials and methods

Food samples analysed

Collection and processing of foods

Food group Food stuff Botanical name

Cereals Rice Oryza sativa

Green leafy Vegetables Amaranth Amaranthus gangeticus

Other vegetables Bitter gourd Momordica charantia

Sunflower oil Helianthus annuus

Extraction of foods for AOA and PC

Determination of the AOA

at 725 nm in a Spectronic AquaMate spectrophotometer. The total PC of the food is

Results and discussion

Figure 1. The AOA* of some plant foods commonly consumed in India.

PC (mg gallic acid equivalent

and split legumes/dhals)

Spinach leaves 33.89/7.33

Food group/foodstuff Correlation coefficient (r )

and split legumes/dhals)

Correlation between the PC and AOA of foods

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