COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF TOTAL IRON, VITAMIN C AND TOTAL PHENOLIC CONTENTS IN FRESH JUICES OF APPLE (MALUS PUMILLA) GROWN IN PAKISTAN.

Abstract

Phenolic compounds have a great impact over human health because of their antioxidant and antiproliferative properties. Vitamin C is also a valuable food component having antioxidant and therapeutic properties and iron is the essential element required to maintain the hemoglobin level in human beings.Fruits and vegetables are rich sources of these compounds. The purpose of this work was to study physiochemical properties like pH, conductivity and total dissolve solids and to find out the amounts of total iron (ferrous and ferric), vitamin C and total phenolic contents in fresh juices of apples cultivated in different areas of Pakistan.The values of pH , conductivity and total dissolved solids were recorded in the range of 3.858 ?4.100, 2.04 ?2 .53 mS cm-1 and 1201 ?1531 mg/100 mL respectively. Classical method of analysis was applied to investigate the iron and vitamin C content, it was found as 1.076± 0.02 ?1 .688± 0.02 mg/1000 mL and 8.79± 0.55 ?45 .56±1.05 mg/1000 mL respectively . The range of total phenolic content was observed from 40.8 ± 1.30 ?59 .8± 1.05 mg/1000 mL of juice using Folin Ciocalteu reagent by spectrophotometer. It was found that obtained results exhibited higher concentration of iron, vitamin C and total phenolic contents in fresh samplejuices than reported data therefore, it is concluded that apples grown in Pakistan have remarkable aggregate of iron, vitamin C and total phenolic contents and play crucial role to serve the human daily requirement. Key words? Apple juices, vitamin C, total phenolic contents, iodimetry and spectrophotometry.