Total flavonoid content in edible parts of selected Allium species

Abstract

Allium species are popular and very common vegetable in the human diet. In addition to giving the smell and taste of food, alliums are well known as plants with potential healing effects. Flavonoids from alliums have been demonstrated to have numerous phytotherapeutic effects on human health. In this paper, the content of total flavonoid in the edible parts of selected Allium species (Allium sativum var. saggitatum L. – bulb; A. fistulosum L. – whole plant; A. ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum L. – bulb; A. nutans L. - leaves; A. odorum L - leaves.; A. schoenoprasum L. - leaves) was investigated, with the aim of assessing the quality of these species. For this purpose six samples of fresh plant material were prepared and extracted with 80% methanol (MeOH). The content of total flavonoid (TFC) was determined by the standard spectrophotometric aluminum chloride method, and the obtained results were expressed as mg of quercetin equivalent (QE) per gram of fresh weight. TFC was in range from 0.14 to 0.79 mg/g QE. The lowest content of TFC was determined in A. fistulosum, while the highest content of TFC was obtained in A. schoenoprasum. In A. sativum var. saggitatum L. and A. ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum L. the presence offlavonoids was not determined.