Nutritional and antioxidant contributions of Laurus nobilis L. leaves: Would be more suitable a wild or a cultivated sample?

Abstract

Medicinal and aromatic plants are used since ancient times in folk medicine and traditional food, but also in novel pharmaceutical preparations. The controversy lies in the use of cultivated and/or wild plants presenting both advantages and disadvantages in biological, ecological but also economic terms. Herein, cultivated and wild samples of Laurus nobilis L. were chemically characterized regarding nutritional value, free sugars, organic acids, fatty acids and tocopherols. Furthermore, the antioxidant activity (scavenging activity, reducing power and lipid peroxidation inhibition) and individual phenolic profile of L. nobilis extracts and infusions were evaluated. Data showed that the wild sample gave higher nutritional contribution related to a higher content of proteins, free sugars, organic acids, PUFA and tocopherols. It also gave better PUFA/SFA and n-6/n-3 ratios. Regarding antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds, it was the cultivated sample (mostly the infusion) that showed the highest values. The present study supports the arguments defending the use of wild and cultivated medicinal and aromatic plants as both present very interesting features, whether nutritional or antioxidant, that can be an assessed by their consumption. In vitro culture could be applied to L. nobilis as a production methodology that allows combination of the benefits of wild and cultivated samples.

Monomeric and oligomeric flavan-3-ols and antioxidant activity of leaves from different Laurus sp.

“…17 It should be emphasized that our extracts have been further inspected for the presence of epigallocatechin (m/z 307), epicatechin-3-gallate (m/z 443) and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (m/z 459), other major flavonoids found in tea leaves. 18 However, these monomeric flavan-3-ols were not detected in the analysed extracts.…”

Phytochemicals and bioactive properties of Ilex paraguariensis: An in-vitro comparative study between the whole plant, leaves and stems

“…Leaves, stems and flowers may present distinct biological activities (Dias et al, 2014). Moreover, the study of plants used as infusions and other beverages has gained crescent significance in the scientific field, due to its proven constituents with bioactive potentials, well-being advantages and functional ingredients (Farzaneh & Carvalho, 2015).…”

Technological characterization and consumer perception of dry fermented game sausages with bay leaf (Laurus nobilis L.) essential oil

“…Statistical analysis revealed that pH, water activity and TBARS values were significantly lower in treatments with bay leaf EO when compared to control group ( The effect of addition of bay leaf EO on TBARS values could be ascribed to the known antioxidative effect of bay leaf EO as stated by many authors (Kaurinovic et al, 2010;Basak and Candan, 2013;Dias et al, 2014). Likewise, antimicrobial effect of bay leaf EO in sausages was also stated (Silveira et al, 2014;García-Díez et al, 2016).…”

“…Although there were statistical differences between treatments, this cannot be unambiguously marked as treatments' influence. Differences between treatments could be due to the antioxidative effect of bay leaf EO as stated by Dias et al (2014), but also due to pepper and hot pepper (Martínez et al, 2006) or garlic (Park et al, 2008) which were all added to meat batter and have antioxidative effect. It is necessary to comprehend the effect of every spice or EO, and to explore synergistic effect with meat components as concluded by Gutierrez et al (2008).…”

“…It is widely used as a spice in cuisine, and in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food industry (Dias et al, 2014). Many reports have shown the antimicrobial and antioxidative activities of bay leaf extracts and its EO in vitro and in vivo (Kaurinovic et al, 2010;Basak and Candan, 2013;Dias et al, 2014).…”