Antioxidant and synergistic activities of fruit and vegetable concentrates

Abstract

The principal objective of this study was to investigate the antioxidant and synergistic effects of fruit and vegetable concentrates. Ten foods from two categories, including fruits (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, acai berry, aronia, cranberry, wild berry, and red grape) and vegetables (spinach and cabbage) were combined in pairs. The antioxidant activity of the individual and combined samples was measured using DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate) and FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) assays. Synergistic antioxidant activities of the combinations of cabbage and acai berry, and blueberry and cranberry showed the most significant (p<0.05) increase in the DPPH and FRAP assays, respectively. In addition, the combination of cabbage and red grape demonstrated significantly high synergistic interaction in both DPPH and FRAP assays (p<0.05). These results indicate the importance of strategic selection of foods and their composition ratio for maximum synergistic antioxidant activity.