J. Agic. Food Chem. 1996, 44, 3426-3431

Antioxidant Capacity of Tea and Common Vegetables

Guohua Cao, Emin Sofic, and Ronald L. Prior

USDA-ARS, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University,

711 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02111, and Nutritional Science Department,

University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269

Previously, some fruits were shown to contain high antioxidant activities. In this paper, we report the antioxidant activities of 22 common vegetable, one green tea and one black tea measured using the automated oxygen radical absorbance capacity assay with three different reactive species: a peroxyl radical generator, a hydroxyl radical generator, and Cu2+, a transition metal. Based on the fresh weight of the vegetable, garlic had the highest antioxidant activity (µmol of Trolox equiv/g) against peroxyl radicals (19.4) followed by kale ( 17.7), spinach (12.6), Brussels sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, broccoli flowers, beets, red bell pepper, onion, corn, eggplant (9.8-3.9), cauliflower, potato, sweet potato, cabbage, leaf lettuce, string ben, carrot, yellow squash, iceberg lettuce, celery and cucumber (3.8-0.5); kale had the highest antioxidant activity against hydroxyl radicals followed by Brussels sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, beets, spinach, broccoli flowers, and the others. The green and black teas had much higher antioxidant activities against peroxyl radicals that all these vegetables. However, the tea also showed a prooxidant activity in the presence of Cu2+, which was not found with any of the vegetables studied.