**2.6 Determination of total antioxidant activity**

Various methods have been introduced for the measurement of the total antioxidant capacity (Delgado-Andrade et al., 2005; Gülçin et al., 2006). In this study antioxidant activity was estimated by the method previously described (Kim et al., 2002, 2003). The *in vitro* antioxidant activities have been determined in two antioxidant tests. Among the different methods permitting to evaluate the antioxidant activities, these two simple stable radical chromogens have a high level of sensitivity and allow the analysis of a large number of samples in a timely fashion (Kim et al., 2002). It was reported that a single method is not enough to evaluate the antioxidant capacity of most of the complex natural products (Ozgen et al., 2006). Antioxidant capacity is expressed as mg of vitamin C equivalent (mg VCE) per g dry weight.
