Antioxidants properties of chocolates sold in Peru

© 2018 Universidad Nacional de Colombia. All rights reserved. The goals of this paper were to evaluate total polyphenol content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), anti-oxidant capacity (AC) and reducing power (RP) of eight dark chocolates that are sold in Peru. Imported and domestic chocolate samples containing between 50% and 74% cacao were defatted. Defatted chocolate (DCh) was separated and treated to extract phenolic compounds. The TPC and AC were determined by using the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent and two in vitro models based on the free-radical capturing capacity DPPH and ABTS. The RP was evaluated by using the potassium pherricyanide method; in the TFCs assessments, catechin was used as the standard. Chocolate TPC varied between 1.69 ± 0.02 and 5.39 ± 0.17 mg gallic acid/g chocolate and AC (DPPH-IC 50 ) varied between 52.97 ± 1.77 and 158.67 ± 2.04 μg/ml extract, and by means of ABTS the values were between 12.01 ± 0.18 and 32.74 ± 0.49 µmol TEAC/g chocolate. Chocolates with 71% and 72% cacao showed a greater antioxidant capacity, which was confirmed by the RP test. Chocolates showed different levels of TPC, TFC, AC and RP, depended on a large degree of the cacao percentage. However, in some cases there was no direct relationship among results, most likely due to different technological and thermal processes as well as different biological nature of cacao beans.