Lettuce and chicory byproducts as a source of antioxidant phenolic extracts

A process to obtain enriched antioxidant phenolic extracts from lettuce (baby, romaine, and iceberg cultivars) and chichory byproducts as a way to valorize these byproducts was developed. Two extraction protocols using water and methanol as solvent were used. Amberlite XAD-2 nonionic polymeric resin was used to purify the extracts. The extraction yield, phenolic content, and phenolic yield were evaluated as well as the antioxidant capacity of the extracts (DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP assays). Baby and romaine lettuce byproducts showed the highest water extract yields [27 and 26 g of freeze-dried extracts/kg of byproduct fresh weight (fw), respectively], whereas baby and iceberg lettuce showed highest methanol extract yields (31 and 23 g of freeze-dried extracts/kg of byproduct fw, respectively). Methanol extraction yielded a raw extract with a high phenolic content, the baby and chicory extracts being the richest with approximately 50 mg of phenolics/g of freeze-dried extract. Regarding the purified extracts, water extraction yielded a higher phenolic content, baby and chicory being also the highest with mean values of approximately 190 and 300 mg of phenolics/g of freeze-dried extract, respectively. Both raw and purified extracts from baby and chicory showed the higher antioxidant contents (DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP assays). The antioxidant capacity was linearly correlated with the phenolic content. The results obtained indicate that lettuce byproducts could be, from the industrial point of view, an interesting and cheap source of antioxidant phenolic extracts to funcionalize foodstuffs.