Small Berries – Attractive Source of Bioactive Compounds for Consumers

Abstract

Small berries nowadays start be very popular not only in medicine, pharmacy but also in gastronomy, due to the high amount of biologically active compounds and pleasant sensory characteristic. These kinds of fruits is rich for natural colorants, flavonoids, phenolic acids, vitamins and mineral compounds. Aim of this study was to investigate the biological activity (antioxidant activity, natural colorants, polyphenols and flavonoids) of selected kind of small berry fruits – acai, goji, schisandra, mulberry and sea buckthorn berries. The values of antioxidant activity by DPPH method was the highest in sea buckthorn berries 8.96 ±0.09 mg TEAC/g; values by molybdenum reducing antioxidant power method ranged from 94.69 (sea buckthorn) to 337.56 (acai) mg TEAC/g. The total polyphenol content in evaluated small berries ranged from 4.29 (mulberry) to 19.66 (acai) mg GAE/g; total flavonoid content was from 0.86 (goji) to 13.01 (acai) μg QE/g. Results showed that goji, schisandra and sea buckthorn berries are also rich for carotenoids, with the highest value in goji berry – 0.38 mg/g. In acai berry was detected high level of total anthocyanins – 10.74 mg/g. The results showed that small berries can be important tools for increasing nutritional value of diet, foods and can improve sensory properties of these products.