Foods High in Polyphenols: The Evidence-Ranked List (and Where Olive Oil Ranks)
Polyphenol rich foods are easy to list and surprisingly hard to rank honestly. The most careful ranking we have comes from a 2010 analysis of the Phenol-Explorer database by Pérez-Jiménez, Neveu, Vos and Scalbert, published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Its 100 richest foods run from cloves, at about 15,000 mg of polyphenols per 100 g, down to about 10 mg per 100 ml at the bottom of the list. The top of that list is dominated by dried spices and herbs, cocoa, dark berries, flaxseed, chestnuts, hazelnuts and a few vegetables, including olives and globe artichoke. This guide sets out that ranking plainly, shows why "per 100 g" and "per portion" tell different stories, and answers the question olive oil drinkers actually ask: where does the oil itself rank?
For our own oil, see our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml).
The Short Answer
- The richest dietary sources of polyphenols, weight for weight, are dried spices and herbs (cloves first), cocoa products, dark berries, flaxseed, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and a few vegetables such as olives and globe artichoke, according to the Pérez-Jiménez 2010 Phenol-Explorer analysis.
- That analysis counts polyphenols by chromatography, compound by compound, across 502 polyphenols in 452 foods, which is more specific than the "total phenolics" (Folin) figures many lists quote.
- Per 100 g, cloves win easily. Per realistic portion, everyday foods such as berries, dark chocolate, nuts and chestnuts move up, because you eat far more of them.
- Olives rank among the richest vegetables. Olive oil does not appear near the top of the per-100 g ranking: much of the fruit's polyphenol content stays behind when the oil is pressed.
- Olive oil still earns its place because it is eaten daily, and because extra virgin oil keeps polyphenols that refining strips out. The EU has an authorised health claim for olive oil polyphenols, but only for oils that meet a specific hydroxytyrosol condition.
- Polyphenol content is not the same as what your body absorbs, and none of these foods is a medicine.
How This Ranking Was Built (and Why Lists Online Disagree)
Phenol-Explorer is a database of polyphenol content in foods. Its founding paper, by Neveu and colleagues in the journal Database in 2010, describes more than 37,000 original data points collected from 638 peer-reviewed articles, aggregated into mean values for 502 polyphenols in 452 foods and beverages.
Pérez-Jiménez and colleagues then added up the individual polyphenols measured by chromatography in each food to get a total, and ranked the foods. Their abstract makes one point that most online lists skip: values from the Folin assay, a cheaper colour-change test often reported as "total phenolics", systematically exceeded the chromatography totals in the same foods. Folin reacts with other reducing substances too, so it overstates.
That explains much of the disagreement you will see online. Two lists can quote different numbers for the same food because one uses chromatography and one uses Folin, because the samples differ, or because one quotes per 100 g and the other per portion. When a figure has no method and no source beside it, treat it as approximate.
One honest note on our own sources. The full 2010 paper sits behind a paywall, and the Phenol-Explorer website could not be reached when we checked in October 2026. The abstract is public, so the endpoints and food groups below come straight from it; the individual per-100 g figures are the ones on which two independent published reproductions of the paper's table agree. Where those reproductions disagreed, or where we could only find one, we left the number out.
The Richest Polyphenol Foods, Ranked by Group
Weight for weight, these are the food groups the Pérez-Jiménez 2010 analysis names as the richest of its 100 richest dietary sources of polyphenols:
- Dried spices, led by cloves
- Dried herbs, such as dried peppermint
- Cocoa powder and dark chocolate
- Darkly coloured berries
- Flaxseed
- Chestnuts and hazelnuts
- Olives and globe artichoke heads
Below them on the full list sit many familiar foods, including other fruits, vegetables, wholegrain flours, and drinks such as coffee and tea. The list stops at about 10 mg per 100 ml, which gives a sense of the scale: the top of the list is more than a thousand times more concentrated than the bottom.
Here are the per-100 g figures we could confirm from two independent reproductions of the paper's table:
| Food | Food group | Total polyphenols (mg per 100 g) |
|---|---|---|
| Cloves | Dried spice | 15,188 |
| Cocoa powder | Cocoa product | 3,448 |
| Dark chocolate | Cocoa product | 1,664 |
| Chestnuts | Nut | 1,215 |
| Blueberries (highbush) | Berry | 560 |
| Hazelnuts | Nut | 495 |
Treat the figures as averages, not guarantees. Variety, ripeness, processing and storage all move the content of any single food, and a bar of dark chocolate with a different cocoa content will not match the average.
Polyphenol-Rich Foods by Category
If you want a shopping list rather than a league table, here are the foods from the top 50 of the Pérez-Jiménez ranking (as reproduced by Nutrition Advance), grouped the way you would find them in a kitchen. Within each group they are listed roughly from richest to least rich per 100 g.
Spices and dried herbs
Cloves, dried peppermint, star anise, dried Mexican oregano, celery seed, dried sage, dried rosemary, dried spearmint, dried thyme, dried basil, curry powder and dried ginger.
Fruit
Black chokeberries (aronia), black elderberries, wild and cultivated blueberries, blackcurrants, plums, sweet cherries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, prunes, black grapes and apples.
Vegetables
Capers, black and green olives, globe artichoke heads, red and green chicory, red onions, spinach and shallots.
Nuts, seeds and soy
Flaxseed, chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, almonds, soy flour, roasted soybeans and tempeh.
Cocoa, coffee and grains
Cocoa powder, dark chocolate and, further down, milk chocolate; filtered coffee; and wholegrain wheat, rye and maize flours.
Per 100 g Versus Per Portion: Why Cloves Do Not Win in Real Life
Nobody eats 100 g of cloves. The Pérez-Jiménez paper recognised this by also working out amounts per serving, using common serving sizes, and found 89 foods and beverages that provide more than 1 mg of total polyphenols per serving. Ranked that way, foods you eat in larger amounts climb the list.
A rough illustration, using the per-100 g figures above and portion sizes we have chosen for the arithmetic (they are not the paper's own serving sizes):
| Food and portion | Approximate polyphenols in that portion |
|---|---|
| Cloves, a 1 g pinch | About 150 mg |
| Cocoa powder, a 5 g spoonful | About 170 mg |
| Hazelnuts, a 30 g handful | About 150 mg |
| Dark chocolate, a 20 g piece | About 330 mg |
| Blueberries, an 80 g portion | About 450 mg |
| Chestnuts, a 50 g portion | About 610 mg |
The practical point is simple. A pinch of spice adds a lot for its weight, but the foods that shift your daily total are the ones you eat often and in reasonable amounts: fruit, nuts, cocoa, coffee or tea, vegetables, and the fat you cook with.
Where Olive Oil Ranks
Olives are among the richest vegetables in the Pérez-Jiménez 2010 analysis; its abstract names them alongside globe artichoke heads. Olive oil is a different matter. In the most detailed per-100 g reproduction of the ranking we checked, a top-50 list published by Nutrition Advance, black and green olives appear but olive oil does not appear at all.
Why the oil carries less than the fruit
The reason is chemistry. Many olive polyphenols are more water-soluble than fat-soluble, so when olives are crushed and the oil is separated, much of the fruit's polyphenol content goes with the water and the solids rather than the oil. What does carry over into a good extra virgin oil includes hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol and their larger relatives, such as oleocanthal and the oleuropein aglycone, which give fresh oil its bitterness and peppery catch. Refined olive oil loses most of them in processing, which is why the grade on the label matters.
The EU health claim for olive oil polyphenols
So olive oil is not a polyphenol heavyweight per 100 g. Its case rests on two other things. First, it is eaten every day, often in larger amounts than any spice. Second, the EU has an authorised health claim written specifically for olive oil polyphenols. Commission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 permits the claim that "Olive oil polyphenols contribute to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress", but only for olive oil that contains at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives (for example, the oleuropein complex and tyrosol) per 20 g of oil, and the consumer must be told that the beneficial effect is obtained with a daily intake of 20 g of olive oil.
That condition is narrower than a total polyphenol figure, and many extra virgin oils on supermarket shelves have not been tested against it. If a bottle states a polyphenol number, look for the method, the laboratory and the date beside it; our guide to high phenolic olive oil explains how to check one, and our look at one high-phenolic brand's published numbers shows what a properly stated figure looks like. For the individual compounds, see our guides to olive oil polyphenols and hydroxytyrosol.
Content Is Not the Same as What You Absorb
A ranking of content tells you what is in a food, not what reaches your bloodstream. Polyphenols differ widely in how well they are absorbed and how quickly they are broken down, and the gut microbiota transforms many of them before they are absorbed. That is one reason a food's position on a content list should not be read as a measure of health value.
It is also why this page makes no promises about what any of these foods will do for a particular condition. The honest message from the composition research is narrower and more useful: a varied diet built around fruit, vegetables, nuts, wholegrains, herbs and spices, with cocoa, coffee or tea if you enjoy them and extra virgin olive oil as your everyday fat, brings many different polyphenols together. If you have a medical condition or take regular medicines, speak to your GP, pharmacist or a registered dietitian before making large changes to your diet.
How to Eat More Polyphenol-Rich Foods Without Overthinking It
- Use spices and dried herbs freely. Cloves, dried mint, oregano and similar add a lot for their weight.
- Eat dark berries often. Fresh or frozen blueberries, blackberries or blackcurrants in a normal portion count.
- Keep nuts to hand. A small handful of hazelnuts or other nuts is an easy daily habit.
- Choose darker chocolate and plain cocoa. Higher cocoa content generally means more cocoa polyphenols; keep portions modest.
- Add olives and artichokes. Both appear among the richest vegetables in the 2010 analysis; preserved artichokes in olive oil are an easy way to keep them in the cupboard.
- Make extra virgin olive oil your everyday fat. Use some of it raw on finished dishes, store it cool and dark, and use it within a few months of opening.
For what to look for on an olive oil label, see our guide to choosing a quality olive oil, and for how the oil fits into a wider way of eating, our article on the olive oil diet.
Why Sidr & Stone
If olive oil is the polyphenol source you reach for every day, the grade and the care behind the bottle matter. Sidr & Stone's extra virgin olive oil comes from our own single-estate farm on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco, where we control every step from tree to bottle. We don't yet publish a polyphenol figure for our oil.
- Single-estate — Sidr & Stone's olive oil comes from our own family-owned farm near Marrakech, with no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — the trees are not irrigated; they take what the season gives.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides are used (not yet certified; certification is in progress).
- Picked when the fruit is ready — the product page has this harvest's details.
- Cold-pressed — to protect flavour, aroma and polyphenols.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, so natural sediment may settle in the bottle.
- 100% natural — a single ingredient, with nothing added.
- Matte black glass that blocks out light — 500ml, with the ingredients and nutrition printed directly on the bottle in gold.
- We have pledged 10% of our profits to charity.
- We ship globally.
We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the best olive oil — that would be the very claim this article warns against. What we will say is that our oil is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed, and that the care shows in how the oil is grown and made.
Frequently Asked Questions
What foods are richest in polyphenols?
Weight for weight, dried spices and herbs (cloves first), cocoa powder and dark chocolate, dark berries, flaxseed, chestnuts, hazelnuts, olives and globe artichoke heads, according to the Pérez-Jiménez 2010 Phenol-Explorer analysis of the 100 richest dietary sources.
Which food has the most polyphenols?
Cloves, at about 15,000 mg per 100 g in the Pérez-Jiménez 2010 analysis. Per realistic portion, though, foods eaten in larger amounts, such as berries, chestnuts and dark chocolate, provide more.
How can I tell if a polyphenol figure is reliable?
Look for the method and the source. Chromatography totals, as used by Phenol-Explorer, are more specific than Folin "total phenolics" figures, which tend to read higher. A number with no method, sample or date beside it is approximate at best.
Do coffee and tea contain polyphenols?
Yes. Coffee, black tea and green tea all contain polyphenols. They are far less concentrated than spices or cocoa, but because many people drink them every day, the amounts add up.
Is Sidr & Stone olive oil high in polyphenols?
We don't yet publish a figure, and we will not guess. Our oil is extra virgin, cold-pressed and unfiltered, which are the conditions that protect polyphenols, and every batch is independently tested.
Does cooking destroy polyphenols?
Heat reduces some polyphenols, and losses depend on the food, the temperature and the time. Using part of your extra virgin olive oil raw, on finished dishes and in dressings, keeps more of what is in the bottle.
Where can I buy Sidr & Stone olive oil?
Directly from us, on our website. We ship globally.
Do you make medical claims about your oil?
No. We don't make medical claims about our oil. If you take medication, especially blood thinners such as warfarin, or are pregnant or breastfeeding, speak to your doctor first.
Final Thoughts
The best-documented ranking of polyphenol rich foods, from Phenol-Explorer, is led by spices, dried herbs, cocoa, dark berries, flaxseed, chestnuts, hazelnuts, olives and artichokes. It is a ranking of concentration, and once you think in portions the everyday foods — berries, nuts, cocoa, coffee, tea and vegetables — matter most.
Olive oil is not near the top of that list per 100 g, and anyone who tells you otherwise is quoting the olive, not the oil. Its value is quieter: it is the fat you use every day, extra virgin oil keeps polyphenols that refined oil loses, and the EU has an authorised health claim written for olive oil polyphenols, under a strict condition.
Our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml) — single-estate, rain-fed and picked when the fruit is ready — is available to order directly from us.
Our extra virgin olive oil is grown organically on our own single-estate farm on the plains outside Marrakech: we control every step from tree to bottle, and no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers are used. It is not yet certified organic — certification is in progress, and we will publish it as soon as it comes through.
Order Now: Sidr & Stone Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil — Marrakech (500ml) →
Disclaimer: This article summarises published food-composition research and the EU health-claim register at the time of writing; figures are averages that vary between samples, and readers should check current sources. It is general information, not personal dietary or medical advice. We don't make medical claims about our oil. If you have a medical condition, take regular medicines or are pregnant, speak to your GP, a registered dietitian or your pharmacist before changing your diet. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.