• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.44 no.9
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• pp.1325-1332
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• 2015

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is an important dietary leafy vegetable that is primarily consumed as a fresh or salad material. It has a number of cultural varieties with green and/or red color. Carotenoids and anthocyanins are known to be responsible for these two colors, respectively. In this study, carotenoid and anthocyanin contents were determined to evaluate the stability of these functional pigments during storage at home. Analyses were carried out at the beginning, 3, 6, 9, and 12 days after harvest. In the course of storage at room temperature, total carotenoid levels rapidly decreased, and the decrease was found to be greatest during the first 3 days. Meanwhile, carotenoid level slightly changed within the first 9 days at $4^{\circ}C$ after harvest. This result suggests that carotenoids in green lettuce are more stable when refrigerated than at room temperature. Meanwhile, total anthocyanin content in red lettuce did not significantly decrease during storage at room temperature and $4^{\circ}C$, which indicates that anthocyanins have higher stability during storage compared with carotenoids in green lettuce. Anthocyanin extract exhibited higher antioxidant activity than carotenoid extract based on 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) radical scavenging assay. Antioxidant activity of anthocyanin extract may also be estimated directly by the presence of another potent hydrophilic antioxidant compound, which is ascorbic acid in this extract. In addition, anthocyanin extract showed about a 5-fold higher amount of anthocyanins than carotenoids in the carotenoid extract. The high correlation between carotenoid content with ABTS radical scavenging activity indicates that ABTS assay is more suitable than 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging assay for detecting antioxidant capacity of carotenoid extract from lettuce.