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. 2019 Nov 21:2:1-10.
doi: 10.1016/j.crfs.2019.11.001. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Relationship between color and antioxidant capacity of fruits and vegetables

Ezgi Doğan Cömert  1 , Burçe Ataç Mogol  1 , Vural Gökmen  1
Affiliations

Relationship between color and antioxidant capacity of fruits and vegetables

Ezgi Doğan Cömert et al. Curr Res Food Sci. .

Abstract

Visual perception plays a key role in the selection of nutritious and healthy foods. Color, as one of the most important senses of vision, can be used as an indicator of food quality/defects and grade. It is recommended consumers include various colors in their plate to obtain various vitamins and minerals. Color is also thought to be related to antioxidant capacity. Within this regard, this study investigated the relationship between color and antioxidant capacity in various fruits and vegetables. The results indicate the color hues analyzed by computer vision based image analysis can be related with TAC of fruits and vegetables, but with some limitations and can be used as a guide for food selection to increase daily antioxidant intake. Most of fruits and vegetables having hue values above 180° and below 20°, have high antioxidant capacity (>10 mmol TE/kg fresh weight). The results also emphasized the importance of the serving size of fruits and vegetables in terms of their contribution to daily antioxidant intake. Based on these results, fruits and vegetables could be categorized into low-, medium-, and high-antioxidant groups according to their TAC and potential contributions to fulfill the recommended daily antioxidant intake. Finally, daily antioxidant intake was evaluated with a healthier scenario created by doubling vegetable portion and reducing fruit portion by half in the meal.

Keywords: Antioxidant capacity; Classification; Color; Dietary guidance; Fruits and vegetables.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Relationship between hue and (a) total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of fruits and vegetables measured by the ABTS assay, and (b) potential contributions to meet the recommended daily TAC requirement calculated per serving size of fruits and vegetables.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Box-and-whisker plots for color classification of fruits and vegetables based on (a) their TAC (per kg) measured by the ABTS assay and (b) potential contributions to meet the recommended daily TAC (per serving size). The top and bottom of the box represent the 25th and 75th percentiles (quartiles), while the ends of the whiskers are the 10th and 90th percentiles, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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