Antioxidant Capacity Changes of 3 Cultivar Chinese Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) Juices and Corresponding Wines

Abstract

This study investigated the antioxidant capacities that included Ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazine (DPPH), ·OH and O(2·)(-)-scavenging abilities, total polyphenols (TP) and total anthocyanins (TA) in pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) juice (PJ) and pomegranate wine (PW). The correlations among them were also analyzed. Both PJ and PW showed significantly high TP and antioxidant capacities, but some differences existed among these cultivars. There was 1596.67 mg/L TP found in sweet PJ, while sour PJ showed the highest titratable acidity of 35.90 g/L and lowest pH value at 2.56. Red PJ was found to have the highest TA (82.26 mg/L) in the 3 cultivars. Sweet PJ showed higher DPPH-scavenging ability and higher FRAP than others. Both PJ and PW exhibited high and relatively stable ·OH-scavenging abilities, in which sour PJ and sour PW had higher O(2·)(-) scavenging capacity than others. Significant positive correlations were observed among TP, DPPH, and FRAP in both PJ and PW. A high correlation between antioxidant capacities and TP indicated that phenolic compounds were major contributors to the high antioxidant activity of PJ and PW.