Parsley, Raw

ORAC Value:
1,301
μ mol TE/100g.

The antioxidant value of Parsley, Raw described in ORAC units is: 1,301 μ mol TE/100g.

 

At first glance, you may think the ORAC value of fresh parsley is low (for a spice) and therefore it would be better to choose something different, like marjoram or basil. Both of those are excellent too but before you give up on raw parsley, you need to know the reason it ranks so low. Why? Because fresh herbs contain a high percentage of water. For this reason, since the ORAC is based off of 100 grams of the ingredient, it skews the test results lower for raw fresh parsley vs. dried parsley. Once you remove the water and have a spice, you will see that parsley in its dried form actually ranks extremely high at 73,670. That means the dried version - on a gram for gram comparison - has over 50x more antioxidants and nutritional content!

ORAC Source

USDA Database for the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) of Selected Foods, Release 2 - Prepared by Nutrient Data Laboratory, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center (BHNRC), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) - May 2010