Traditional versus modern apple cultivars – a comparison of juice composition

Abstract

Apples are rich in components that are important for human health, such as polyphenols, organic acids and microelements, but their chemical composition varies with different apple cultivars. We aimed to find out if there is any superiority in traditionally grown apple cultivars in terms of their fruits’ bioactive components content. Juice from two traditionally grown apple cultivars, ‘Mutsu’ and ‘Reinette Simirenko’, was compared to eight popular apple cultivars, ‘Jonagold’, ‘Jonagold Decosta’, ‘Jonica’, ‘Šampion’, ‘Gloster’, ‘Elise’, ‘Golden Delicious’ and ‘Rubin’, and the results are presented. In the study we determined several major and minor nutrient elements, organic acids, phenolic content as well as the antioxidant activity of apple juice made from different cultivars, both modern and traditionally grown. Antioxidant activity determined as FRAP varied from 1.12 (‘Elise’) to 12.10 (‘Jonagold’) mmol Fe dm-3. The concentration of polyphenols fell between 0.16 (‘Elise’) and 1.30 (‘Jonagold’) mg ml-1 gallic acid equivalent. Malic acid concentration was highest in ‘Reinette Simirenko’ and ‘Mutsu’ (6.58 and 5.84 g dm-3, respectively) and lowest for ‘Jonagold’ (3.73 g dm-3). The microelement concentrations for the apple cultivar juices were as follows: 8-24 mg dm-3 for Na, 567-1022 mg dm-3 for K, 26.9-59.4 mg dm-3 for Mg and 0.105-0.201 mg dm-3 for Zn. Statistical analysis confirmed a highly positive correlation between total polyphenols and antioxidant activity (r = 0.98, p = 0.001).

Keywords

• antioxidant activity
• apple juice
• nutrient elements
• organic acids
• polyphenol