Native Australian fruits - a novel source of antioxidants for food

Twelve native Australian fruits, finger lime (red and yellow), riberry, brush cherry, Cedar Bay cherry, muntries, Illawarra plum, Burdekin plum, Davidson's plum, Kakadu plum, Molucca raspberry and Tasmanian Pepper, were investigated for their antioxidant capacity and presence of phenolic compounds, anthocyanins and ascorbic acid. The radical scavenging activities of five of the evaluated fruits were significantly higher (3.1 to 5.2-fold in the TEAC assay and 1.2 to 4.2-fold in the PCL assay, respectively) than that of the control blueberry, cv. Biloxi. The total phenolics level (Folin-Ciocalteu assay) in six of the twelve fruits was 2.5 to 3.9-fold of that of blueberry. Kakadu plum was identified as the richest source of ascorbic acid (938-fold of that of control). A high correlation between total phenolics (but not anthocyanins) and antioxidant capacity was observed. The HPLC-DAD/ESl/MS-MS profiles revealed simple anthocyanin composition (one to four individual pigments) with cyanidin as the dominating type. Australian native fruits investigated in this study are shown to be a novel rich source of antioxidant compounds. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.