Bioactive Compounds, Antioxidant Activity and Nutritional Quality of Different Culinary Aromatic Herbs

Abstract

In the present work, four of the most widely used culinary herbs (parsley, dill, lovage and celery leaves) in the Romanian traditional cuisine were assessed for some nutritional quality parameters (moisture content, titratable acidity, ascorbic acid content and mineral content), total phenolics content, total flavonoids content and antioxidant activity by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay. In addition, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with diode-array detection was applied for the identification and quantification of some individual phenolic compounds in the selected aromatic herbs. Although parsley showed the highest ascorbic acid content (206.32 mg/100 g fw), it registered the lowest antioxidant activity. Fresh lovage recorded the highest total phenolic content (577.04 mg GAE/100 g), total flavonoids content (298.38 mg QE/100 g) and antioxidant activity, followed by dill and celery leaves. Among the identified phenolic acids, ellagic acid was predominant in lovage and celery leaves whereas sinapic and vanillic acids were prevalent in dill. Among flavonoids, myricetin was predominant in parsley and celery leaves whereas rutin was predominant in dill and lovage.

Bioactive compounds content and nutritional potential of different parsley parts (Petroselinum crispum Mill.

“…''Halblange', 'Arat', 'Eagle'. Obtained results of TPC in parsley leaves are in agreement with other literature data (Marinova et al, 2005;Leahu et al, 2013;Santos et al, 2014;Nour et al, 2017).…”

“…It's specific to exhibit a strong antioxidant activity and recently become one of the most popular vitamins in human nutrition (Peel, 2006). Parsley, specifically parsley leaves, is characteristic for the high content of vitamin C (Catunescu et al, 2012;Najla et al, 2012;Karklelienė et al, 2014;Nour et al, 2017). In this research, the highest ascorbic acid (AA) content (162.09 mg/100 g FW) was determined in leaf for cv.…”

“…'Mooskrause', while the lowest TSS was determined for cv. (Karklelienė et al, 2014;Santos et al, 2014;Nour et al, 2017).…”

“…Antioxidant activity is directly correlated to the content of total phenols, flavonoids, vitamins and pigments so samples with higher amounts of mentioned biologically active compounds exhibit a higher antioxidant activity (Heim et al, 2002;Šic Žlabur et al, 2016). Depending on the plant part, the highest antioxidant capacity (ANT_ CAP) was determined in leaves, on average 27% higher compared to the stem and 3 times higher compared to the root (Table 2) (Santos et al, 2014;Nour et al, 2017).…”

“…Aromatic herbs, among parsley also, are a rich source of various phytochemicals with strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and anticarcinogenic activities (Nour et al, 2017). Bioactive compounds, of which especially phenolic compounds, are a main carriers of health benefits mainly because of their biological effects such as inhibition of free radicals and cellular proliferation (Del Rio et al, 2013).…”