PHENOLIC CONTENT AND ANTIOXIDANT CAPACITY OF SWEET AND SOUR CHERRIES.

Sweet and sour cherries are a valuable natural source of somebioactive compounds important in human health preservation. Total phenolics,tannins, flavonoids and anthocyanins, and antioxidant capacity in a fruits of atwo selected sweet cherry genotypes (Szomolyai Gombolyii and Valerij Cskalov)and 2 sour cherry cultivars (Érdi bőtermő and Kántorjánosi) were investigated.Total phenolic content ranged from 76.05 up to 301.19 mg gallic acidequivalents/100 g fresh fruit weight and total tannins content ranged from32.33 to 236.61 mg gallic acid equivalents/100 g fresh fruit weight. Totalflavonoids were within the range 49.47-70.27 mg of rutin equivalents/100 gfresh fruit weight and total anthocyanins content were between 16.86 and51.16 mg cyanidin 3-glucoside equivalents/100 g fresh fruit weight. Antioxidantactivity of sweet and sour cherries is correlated with the total phenolics andtotal tannins content, and partially related with total anthocyanins, but not withthe total flavonoids. Fruits of sour cherries contains more phenolics than fruitsof sweet cherries and possess more potent antioxidant activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]