Comparisons of antioxidant activities of two varieties of pumpkin (<i>Cucurbita moschata and Cucurbita maxima</i>) extracts

Abstract

Pumpkin is a plant that is widely found in the territory of Indonesia. This study has evaluated the antioxidant activity, morphological, physicochemical and chemical properties of three components of C. moschata and C. maxima (the pulp, seed, and rinds). The C. moschata and C. maxima extracts were obtained by the maceration method using ethanol as the solvent. The higher antioxidant activity measured by DPPH assays was found in the rinds of C. maxima as of 33.8% of radical scavenging activity, followed by the pulp of C. maxima and seed of C. moschata as of 29.6% and 25.4% respectively. The higher carbohydrate content was established in the pulp of C. moschata with 78.6% and pulp of C. maxima with 69.5%. On the other hand, the seed of C. moschata and C. maxima had higher amounts of fats with 28.5% and 10.4%, respectively, while proteins were 19.2% and 12.3%, respectively. The C. moschata pulp, seed, and rinds also had been analysed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) for their morphological characteristic, The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) for their functional groups and Color Reader for their color diversity. The result of this study showed that different part of C. moschata and C. maxima has good antioxidant activity and proximate composition so that appear to be promising comestibles for technological exploitation.