Activity Water and Antioxidative Properties of Wild Onion from Bosnia and Herzegovina
Wild onion is a vegetable plant recognizable as food and folk medicine. Its greater application in the food and pharmaceutical industry has found in last decades. In food industry wild onion is mainly used as a spice, while in the pharmaceutical industry it is a common ingredient in dietary supplements. Processing of a fresh wild onion is constantly increasing. Active ingredients of wild onion are: raw vegetable fibers especially cellulose, allium compounds, chlorophyll, flavonoid, quercetin. Wild onion is used in a fresh and processed condition. In most cases it is processed by drying at 40-50 °C for 5 to 10 hours, but also the active ingredients are extracted with various technological processes. Water content in the final product ranges from 6 10% and water activity from 0,17 to 0,21. Total phenolic content was expressed as mg of gallic acid in 100 g of raw material and it was estimated as an average value 561,013. The antioxidant capacity was expressed as EC50 value that represents amount of sample required for the reduction of 50% DPPH free radicals and it was estimated as an average value 6,032. The content of the water was determined by drying. The water activity and color intensity were estimated by using instrumental methods. Antioxidant capacity was estimated by using of DPPH method and phenolic content by application of Folin-Ciocalteu calorimetry. Processing of fresh wild onion in the standardized dried semiproducts may be significant due to the conservation of biological properties, and possibility of applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Abbreviations: DPPH-2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl; EC50, concentration of antioxidant needed to reduce the original amount of radical by 50%.