The Influence of Fortification of Dark Chocolate with Sea Buckthorn and Mulberry on the Content of Biologically Active Substances

Abstract

The aim of our study was to assess the impact of mulberry (Morus nigra L.) and sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) addition on improvement of antioxidant characteristics of dark chocolate. For evaluation of total polyphenolic content we used Folin-Ciocalteu reagent, for total content of flavonoids spectrophotometric assay based on a formation of coloured flavonoid-aluminium complex was used and for the content of total phenolic acids was used method using Arnow’s reagent. Three different methods were also used for measuring the antioxidant activity of samples: DPPH scavenging activity, reducing power method and phosphomolybdate method. Obtained results showed, that compared to plain dark chocolate used as control, chocolate enriched with mulberry exhibited higher polyphenolic content and antioxidant capacity. On the other hand, enrichment with sea buckthorn didn’t show such significant improvement in antioxidant characteristics, but increased the levels of bioactive compounds despite the lower content of cocoa solids.