Activities

This work describes the chemical composition of the essential oils extracted from fresh leaves of Lippia origanoides Kunth. and Mentha spicata L. and their antioxidant and insecticidal activities. The essential oils were extracted by steam distillation using a modified Clevenger apparatus and subsequently analyzed by gas chromatography-flame ionization detector and gas chromatogra-phy-mass spectrometry. The antioxidant activities were determined by the β-carotene-linoleic acid method and by sequestration of the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hidrazila radical. The concentra-tions of the essential oils and the synthetic standard, butylated hydroxyltoluene, were 25, 50, 100