Wild Blueberries Have Most Antioxidant Than Common Fruits

Filed in archive Food and Agriculture on October 10, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Michal Koziarski

Cornell University researchers have tested 25 fruits of its cellular antioxidant activity (CAA) and found that wild blueberries have greater antioxidant content than common fruits such as apples, bananas, red grapes and strawberries. Even superfruits such as noni, acai and goji did not measure up to wild blueberries.

In addition to CAA, the researchers also measured total phenolic content, and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) values. These are more typical 'in-the-fruit' readings but the researchers wanted to test the levels of antioxidants in fruits in a more biologically representative manner, hence their application of the CAA method which measures antioxidant activity 'in-the-cell'.

Findings are published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.