Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2014) 3(11) 436-444 436 Original Research Article Comparative study on the antioxidant activity of selected culinary plants growing in Bulgaria Aneta Tincheva Popova 1* , Dasha Spasova Mihaylova 2 and Iordanka Nikolova Alexieva 1 1 Departament of Catering and Tourism, University of Food Technologies, Plovdiv, Bulgaria 2 Departament of Biotechnology, University of Food Technologies, Plovdiv, Bulgaria *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Herbal remedies have been used for thousands of years (Backer, 1965). Many plants, used as medical herbs, culinary spices or food ingredients have been recognized to have beneficial impact on health, e.g. antioxidant activity, digestive stimulation action, antimicrobial, hypolipidemic, antiinflammatory, antimutagenic effects and anticarcinogenic potential (Temple, 2000; Pandey and Rizvi, 2009). Some of them are applied to enhance flavour, to inhibit spoilage of foods, to improve biological activity, thus being an additional or a main ingredient in traditional meals or beverages (Temple, 2000; Alexieva, 2010; Sapundjieva et al., 2012). Due to the specific content of antioxidants, plant extracts are of increasing interest for the food industry because they can be used as natural additives to improve the quality, ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 3 Number 11 (2014) pp. 436-444 http://www.ijcmas.com Keywords Chrysanthemum balsamita, Melissa officinalis, Allium bulgaricum, Culinary, Polyphenol content, Antioxidant activity Culinary plant extracts prepared with 70% ethanol from three species Chrysanthemum balsamita L., Melissa officinalis L. and Allium bulgaricum L. growing in Bulgaria were screened for their in vitro antioxidant activity and total phenolic compounds content. Samples of fresh plant material were subjected to heat-reflux extraction and several complementary tests were used in order to determine the antioxidant activity of the extracts, namely ABTS radical scavenging, DPPH radical cation decolorization activity, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay and copper reduction assay (CUPRAC). The total polyphenolic content of the obtained extracts was executed spectrophotometrically using the Folin Ciocalteu s phenol reagent. The concentration of polyphenolics was established to be in the range from 0.41 ± 0.08 to 2.71 ± 0.15 mg GAE/g fw. M. officinalis fresh leaves showed the strongest antioxidant activity according to all performed assays. Based on the results of the present study, it was revealed that the investigated Bulgarian culinary plants could be considered a potential source of polyphenolics and thus could be applied as antioxidants of natural origin in culinary.