LAUSR

Antioxidants and secondary metabolites have attracted a great deal of attention for their effect in preventing disease due to oxidative stress. In this study, two cultivars of Basella alba were evaluated for the ascorbic acid, total phenolic, flavonoid and total antioxidant activities by standard methods. Ascorbic acid of green cultivar was 19.38 mg/100g and red cultivar was 25.85 mg/100g fresh weight, highly significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed in ascorbic acid. Total phenolic contents were 61.00 and 90.52 mg/g fresh weight for the green and red cultivar respectively, flavonoid content of the green cultivar was 13.37 mg/g while red cultivar was 17.7mg/g significant difference was observed in the ferric reducing power of the two cultivars. DPPH of green cultivar was 78.85% while for red cultivar was 79.81%, no significant difference was observed between the cultivars. Total antioxidant activity for green cultivar was 60.86 mg/g while for red cultivar was 70.38 mg/g fresh weight, no significant difference was observed in the total antioxidant activity. Both cultivars were excellent sources of ascorbic acid, total phenolic compound, flavonoid and total antioxidant properties although red cultivar had higher values.