Table 3.
Organic acid and sugar composition in saffron and its floral by-products
| Samples | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SFL1 | SFL2 | Spanish Saffron | Iranian Saffron | Greek Saffron | |
| Organic acids (g/100 g dw) | |||||
| Lactic acid | 3.59 ± 0.85b | 4.00 ± 0.62bc | 6.02 ± 0.16a | 5.27 ± 0.43ac | 5.55 ± 0.77a |
| Malic acid | 3.86 ± 0.88b | 5.89 ± 0.72a | 2.72 ± 0.31b | 2.57 ± 0.65b | 2.03 ± 0.62bc |
| Fumaric acid | 0.17 ± 0.03a | 0.17 ± 0.01a | nd | nd | nd |
| Propionic acid | 2.13 ± 0.85a | 2.34 ± 0.60a | nd | nd | nd |
| Oxalic acid | nd | nd | 0.32 ± 0.02a | 0.28 ± 0.02a | 0.29 ± 0.04a |
| Formic acid | nd | nd | 4.42 ± 0.45b | 4.65 ± 0.27b | 7.18 ± 0.39a |
| Soluble sugars (g/100 g dw) | |||||
| Glucose | 12.81 ± 1.23a | 13.55 ± 1.49a | 6.50 ± 0.06b | 6.32 ± 0.14b | 6.63 ± 0.28b |
| Fructose | 28.67 ± 3.19b | 35.33 ± 4.29a | 2.82 ± 0.25c | 1.58 ± 0.31c | 0.63 ± 0.14c |
Means ± standard deviation in the same line followed by different lowercase letters indicate statistically significant differences at (p ≤ 0.05) for each sample (n = 3); nd: not detected; SFL1, SFL2: Saffron floral by-products from two different producers