Abstract: Natural antioxidant peptides are safer than synthetic food antioxidants, hence the growing interest in the substitution of synthetic food antioxidants by natural antioxidant peptides has focused research on their preparation from inexpensive or residual sources from agricultural industries. Except for antioxidant ability, other biological properties such as anticarcinogenicity, antimutagenicity and antiaging activity have been reported for natural antioxidant peptides. Hence antioxidant peptides are not exclusive concern for the food industry, which are widely needed to prevent deterioration of other oxidisable goods, such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and plastics. In the last few decades, antioxidant peptides have been given more and more attentions for its important function and become the focus of domestic and foreign studies. In this review, after presenting general aspects about natural source of antioxidant peptides, is to focus on the crude extraction and purification of antioxidant peptides from agricultural and industrial wastes, as well as to summarize the evaluating indicators and influencing factors of antioxidant activity. At last the application of antioxidant peptides is presented.

Key words: antioxidant peptides, antioxidant ability, free radicals, bioresource