Optimization of the Measurement of Italian Monocultivar Extra Virgin Olive Oil Antioxidant Power Via the Briggs–Rauscher Reaction

Abstract

In this paper, the overall antioxidant power of monocultivar extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) from Marche Region (Italy) was determined modifying, for the first time, the Briggs–Rauscher (BR) method to account for the water insolubility of the samples. The modification can pave the way to extend the BR antioxidant capacity assay to other real food systems that are usually heterogeneous mixtures and to easily take into account synergistic effects of antioxidants and food matrix that are essential to determine the antioxidant capacity; the pH of the method is the pH of gastric fluids, and this is noteworthy if we take into account that lipid peroxidation is amplified at this pH. The method is simple, rapid, and inexpensive. The interplay among antioxidant activity and total phenol content is rewarding and witness the feasibility of the method for the fast screening of antioxidant activity of EVOO samples.