Determination of phenolic content level and free radical scavenging ability in freshly prepared and commercial orange juice in nairobi county-kenya.

Abstract

The orange fruit is widely consumed in the world. They are used to manufacture orange juice Which is commercially sold as bottled orange juice. The higher consumption of orange fruits and Orange products is because it has an attractive taste, has no cholesterol, and contains potassium, Carbohydrates, vitamins a and c as well as different classes of phenolic compounds that help in The protection of the human body system against free oxygen radicals. This study aimed to Quantify the total phenolic content and determine the free radical scavenging ability in both the Freshly prepared orange juice and commercially bottled orange juice in nairobi county. The Total phenolic content (tpc) was done using the folin-ciocalteu method. The total phenolic Content of the fresh orange extract samples ranged from 129.75±0.39 mggae to133.1±0.95 Mggae while the commercial bottled orange juice ranged between 110.23±0.23 mggae to 131.54±0.02 mggae. The study further evaluated the scavenging ability of both the freshly Prepared orange juice and the commercially bottled orange juice using 2,2-diphenyl-1- Picrylhydrazyl as a free radical. The ability to scavenge for free radicals of all the samples was Expressed as the percentage scavenging activity which was compared with the standard Antioxidant ascorbic acid, it was observed that the percentage scavenging acitivity of the fresh Orange extract samples analyzed ranged from 16.40±0.02% to 18.32±0.1% while the percentage Scavenging activity of the commercial bottled orange juice samples ranged between 10.20±0.8% To 20.28±0.23%. The higher the total phenolic content the higher the percentage inhibition.