Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) for financial support to CIMO (strategic project PEst-OE/AGR/UI0690/2011) and REQIMTE (PEst-C/EQB/LA0006/2011). M.I. Dias, L. Barros and R.C. Alves also thank to FCT, POPH-QREN and FSE for their grants (SFRH/BD/84485/2012, SFRH/BPD/4609/2008 and SFRH/BPD/68883/2010, respectively).
Medicinal and aromatic plants are used since ancient times in folk medicine and traditional food, but also in novel pharmaceutical preparations. The controversy lies in the use of cultivated and/or wild plants presenting both advantages and disadvantages in biological, ecological but also economic terms. Herein, cultivated and wild samples of Laurus nobilis L. were chemically characterized regarding nutritional value, free sugars, organic acids, fatty acids and tocopherols. Furthermore, the antioxidant activity (scavenging activity, reducing power and lipid peroxidation inhibition) and individual phenolic profile of L. nobilis extracts and infusions were evaluated. Data showed that the wild sample gave higher nutritional contribution related to a higher content of proteins, free sugars, organic acids, PUFA and tocopherols. It also gave better PUFA/SFA and n − 6/n − 3 ratios. Regarding antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds, it was the cultivated sample (mostly the infusion) that showed the highest values. The present study supports the arguments defending the use of wild and cultivated medicinal and aromatic plants as both present very interesting features, whether nutritional or antioxidant, that can be an assessed by their consumption. In vitro culture could be applied to L. nobilis as a production methodology that allows combination of the benefits of wild and cultivated samples.
