Olive pomace (OP) is a valuable food byproduct that contains natural phenolic compounds with health benefits related to their antioxidant activities. Few investigations have been conducted on OP from the United States while many studies on European OP have been reported. OP of Arbequina, the most common cultivar from California, was collected and extracted by water, 70% methanol and 70% ethanol, followed by purification using macroporous absorbing resin. Results showed that the extractable total phenolic content (TPC) was 36-43 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g in pitted, drum-dried defatted olive pomace (DOP), with major contributions from hydroxytyrosol, oleuropein, rutin, verbascoside, 4-hydroxyphenyl acetic acid, hydroxytyrosol-glucoside and tyrosol-glucoside. Macroporous resin purification increased TPC by 4.6 times the ethanol crude extracts of DOP, while removing 37.33% total sugar. The antioxidant activities increased 3.7 times Trolox equivalents (TrE) by DPPH and 4.7 times TrE by ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) in the resin purified extracts compared to the ethanol crude extracts. This study provided a new understanding of the extraction of the bioactive compounds from OP which could lead to practical applications as natural antioxidants, preservatives and antimicrobials in clean-label foods in the US.
Keywords: antioxidant activity; hydroxytyrosol; macroporous absorbing resin; natural phenolic compounds; olive pomace.