Cocoa and cocoa products are among the foods that are extremely rich with antioxidants. With the emergence of new trends in a healthy lifestyle, people are looking for alternative sources of nutrition with a high content of antioxidants. And for this reason, we have decided to determine and compare the content of total phenolic compounds (TPC) and trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) in the dark chocolate (dark chocolate “Choceur” with 85 % cocoa and dark chocolate “Lindt” with 70 % cocoa), milk chocolate (milk chocolate “Fina” and milk chocolate “Lindt”), white chocolate (white chocolate “Lindt”) and in the raw cocoa (raw cocoa “Criollo”). From the defatted samples of chocolate and cocoa, extracts were prepared with a mixture of acetone and 2 % acetic acid solution in a ratio of 70 : 30 (v/v). Because of the low content of antioxidants in the samples of white chocolate, we decided to prepare extracts also with 2 % acetic acid solution. TPC was determined spectrophotometrically using the Folin-Ciocalteu method and the results were given as the equivalent of gallic acid. The highest content of TPC was determined in the raw cocoa (124.9 μmol/g) and the lowest content was determined in the white chocolate (1.0 μmol/g). The TEAC was determined using the DPPH• radical scavenging method. The largest TEAC showed raw cocoa (207 μmol/g), whereas the white chocolate showed an extremely low TEAC (0.2 μmol/g). From our research we can also conclude that the content of cocoa in chocolate products strongly influences the content of TPC and TEAC.
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