Background: Due to its high content of antioxidant compounds, vinegar can be considered an excellent source of health promoting compounds. The aim of this study was to compare the physicochemical composition and antioxidant capacity of eighteen vinegars made from red and white wine, apple, rose petals, and balsamic acid.
Methods: Eight randomly selected commercial vinegars from the Greek market and ten homemade vinegars were used. Their quality characteristics, color profile, polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity were determined.
Results: The results showed that there is a high diversity of values among the examined vinegar samples indicating that the raw material and the applied production methods can affect their composition. Red wine vinegars and red balsamic vinegars exhibited the highest levels of total phenols, followed by fruit vinegars, white wine vinegars and white balsamic vinegars. The antioxidant capacity was strongly affected by the total phenolic content, followed by the total flavonoid content and less so by the color density.
Conclusions: Our findings could provide important information to consumers about the randomly selected vinegars from the Greek market and could be used for the development and optimization of homemade and commercial vinegars.
Keywords: antioxidant activity; color; polyphenols; quality control; spectrophotometric methods; vinegar.