Quality attributes and antioxidant activity of three wild plums from Prunus spinosa and Prunus domestica species

Abstract

In this study, the quality and antioxidant properties of three plum cultivars wildly grown in Turkey including Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), Karaca (Prunus domestica var. karaca) and Üryani (Prunus domestica var. uryani) were investigated. For the outer shell, the lowest L*, a* and b* values were found in blackthorn (15.47, 2.59 and 1.77, respectively), while the highest values were obtained in Üryani (27.58, 7.04 and 6.55, respectively). For the pulp, the highest L*(31.26), a* (7.46) and b* (14.59) were found in Üryani, Karaca and Üryani, respectively. Although Blackthorn displayed higher values of dry matter, total soluble solids, pH, total acidity, formol number, total sugar, reduced sugar, unreduced sugar, dietary fiber and ash, the studied plums showed no significant difference in terms of the physico-chemical properties. The protein content was higher in Üryani (1.26%), followed by Blackthorn (0.99%) and Karaca (0.87%), respectively. The greatest total phenolic content (TPC), total anthocyanin content (TAC) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) were determined in Blackthorn while the greatest radical scavenging activity (EC50) was identified in Karaca. The studied plums contained sorbitol, glucose and fructose. These plums contain reasonable amounts of micronutrients. Karaca, Üryani and particularly Blackthorn have great nutritional and antioxidant properties and their consumption can prevent many diseases.