Correlations of antioxidant activity against phenolic content revisited: a new approach in data analysis for food and medicinal plants.

This study presents a new approach to analyze data correlating total antioxidant activity and total phenolic compounds in foods. The correlation of both variables is a common practice found in the literature. The purpose of these correlations is to determine the contribution of phenolics to the total antioxidant activity of foods. When low R(2) values are obtained, the general conclusion is that other compounds have a higher relevance than phenolics in the total antioxidant activity of the samples. However, these correlations do not consider differences in the phenolic profiles that can be qualitatively (type of phenolics present) and quantitatively (the relative amounts or proportions of phenolics present) among the samples under investigation. The new approach to analyze these simple correlations presented herein takes into consideration the phenolic profiles and provides information on the effectiveness of phenolics present in the samples to neutralize free radicals. Data obtained from carrots stored under conditions of air and hyperoxia (superatmospheric oxygen) are used to exemplify how to apply this new approach.