Antioxidant activity of some roasted foods

The antioxidative potential of ethanolic extracts from roasted wheat germ was compared with extracts from other roasted food. Among the cereal products, roasted wheat germ and roasted press cake from wheat germ processing yielded the most efficient extracts when added to stripped maize oil under accelerated-oxidation conditions. Ground and roasted hazelnut and sweet almond, respectively, showed comparable protective effects in stripped maize oil. In the same model system, an ethanolic extract of commercial coffee suppressed lipid oxidation almost completely. Radical scavenging effects of some extracts were analysed using the bleaching of the stable 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH). The results were not in full agreement with those obtained in the accelerated oxidation experiments using stripped maize oil. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.