179 Umile Gianfranco Spizzirri and Giuseppe Cirillo (eds.) Food Safety: Innovative Analytical Tools for Safety Assessment, (179–220) © 2017 Scrivener Publishing LLC 6 Determination of Antioxidant Compounds in Foodstuf Amilcar L. Antonio, Eliana Pereira, José Pinela, Sandrina Heleno, Carla Pereira and Isabel C.F.R. Ferreira* Mountain Research Centre (CIMO), ESA, Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Bragança, Portugal Abstract Phenolic compounds, vitamins and carotenoids are naturally found in diferent f foodstuf. T f ese antioxidant compounds play an important role in human health T and are of interest for the food, pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical industries. Modern chromatographic and spectrometric techniques have made analysis easier than ever before, but their success depends on the extraction method used. In fact, the diferent antioxidants are identif f ed using chromatographic techniques coupled f to diferent specif f c detectors according to the characteristics of each molecule. f Beyond their well-known health-promoting efects, antioxidant molecules can also f be used to functionalize or preserve the freshness, nutritive value, favor and color f of foodstufs, which justify their incorporation into several matrices. In this chap- f ter, the most common antioxidant compounds in foodstuf will be described, as f well as the methodologies involved in their extraction, separation, identifcation f and quantifcation. T f e bioactive properties and industrial applications of these T compounds through innovative techniques will also be taken into account. Keywords: Antioxidants, natural sources, extraction, identifcation, quantif f ca- f tion, structure elucidation 6.1 Introduction Free radicals and their reactive metabolites, named as reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS and RNS, respectively), are produced in the natural *Corresponding author: iferreira@ipb.pt