Addition of Medicinal Plants Increases Antioxidant Activity, Color, and Anthocyanin Stability of Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) Functional Beverages.

Desislava Teneva,Petko Denev,Yordan Georgiev,Manol Ognyanov,Daniela Pencheva,Ani Petrova

doi:10.3390/plants11030243

Desislava Teneva, Petko Denev + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11030243

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Abstract

The present study investigates the effect of the addition of medicinal plants, such as lady’s mantle, lavender, rosehip, and meadowsweet, on the chemical composition, antioxidant activity, and color intensity of ready-to-drink aronia nectar during pasteurization and long-term storage. Pasteurization caused a significant decrease in anthocyanin content of aronia nectar, which reduced to 20% of the initial value after four months of storage. Herbs provided different protection to aronia anthocyanins that degraded more slowly during the four-month storage compared to pasteurized control without herbs. The addition of medicinal plants enriched aronia nectar with phenolic compounds and increased its antioxidant activity by up to 52% in meadowsweet-aronia nectar. Moreover, it was accompanied by a color intensity magnification due to co-pigmentation of aronia anthocyanins and herbal phenolics. In contrast to anthocyanins, which constantly degraded during the whole period, color intensity began to stabilize after 30 days, demonstrating that co-pigmentation was progressively established during the time and rosehip provided the best stabilization of aronia nectar color. Current research demonstrates for the first time that medicinal plants such as lady’s mantle, rosehip, and especially meadowsweet can be used to increase antioxidant activity, color, and anthocyanin stability of black chokeberry functional beverages.

Highlights

Aronia melanocarpa, known as black chokeberry, is a deciduous shrub that belongs to the Rosaceae family
We investigated in model systems the co-pigmentation of anthocyanins isolated from black chokeberry with polyphenolic copigments and herbal extracts [22]
As it is evident from the results, black chokeberry nectar is a very rich source of polyphenols—3020.0 mg/L and anthocyanins—700.4 mg/L, rendering very high oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) antioxidant activity of

Summary

Introduction

Known as black chokeberry, is a deciduous shrub that belongs to the Rosaceae family. Black chokeberry fruits reveal numerous health benefits and are among the richest sources of polyphenols and anthocyanins in the plant kingdom [2,3]. Besides strong antioxidant and immunomodulatory activities, the beneficial health effects of chokeberry include gastroprotective, hypotensive, lipid-lowering, anticarcinogenic, neuroprotective, and cardioprotective effects [4,5,6,7,8]. Anthocyanins act as antioxidants and show numerous health benefits, including anticancer, antiatherogenic, and anti-inflammatory effects [14]. Besides their health benefits, anthocyanins in foods are an important quality parameter that affects customers’ preferences.

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