Essential oils: in vitro antioxidant activities and their utilizations in storage life increment of foods

Abstract

In recent years, the attention on essential oils (EOs) as natural additives of food products have been rapidly growing due to the extended health risk of synthetic preservatives. Artificial additives can minimize food spoilage, though the current generation is very health-conscious and believes in natural preservatives rather than the synthetic ones owing to their potential toxicity and other challenges. The utilization of EOs for shelf-life extension in foods is mostly due to their antioxidant attributes which can be verified by the massive number of researches published in this area. The intention of this paper is to analyze the methods which have been utilized for antioxidant activity measurement of EOs, highlighting their potential and usefulness as well as discussing the impact of EOs on oxidative stability of food products such as vegetable oils, meat and dairy products, particularly with regard to their potency, synergistic effects and principal components.

Keywords

• antioxidant activity
• essential oil
• food
• shelf-life