that 13 of the weight was removed by treatment 2 and an additional 4 5 by treatment 3 the rancimat induction times of each finished extract were determined again the yield from the unrefined extract 1 was considered to have 100 activity it is noted that the antioxidant activity increases with the removal of unwanted pro oxidant or antagonistic materials in steps 2 and 3 in other words a concentration of 0 083 of sample 3 in oil has 123 of the stability of a concentration of 0 1 of sample 1 in oil table i______________________________________ yield activity of equivalentsample description relative amounts of extract______________________________________1 total extract 100 100 2 acetone solubles 87 117 3 decolorized 83 123 acetone solubles______________________________________ it should be noted that the amount of acetone insolubles in this example 13 is much below that of example 1 33 these two numbers represent the extremes of the concentrations of these materials generally encountered in the herb and may be related to freshness the specific cultivar season of harvest or geographical area the examples show that the desirable effects of this invention are not limited to specific tyeps of rosemary herb the acetone insolubles can also be removed using another food grade solvent such as a petroleum ether such as hexane or heptane a lower alcohol a lower ester such as ethyl acetate or another lower alkyl ketone such as methyl ethyl ketone or the like in which the same insoluble materials are soluble warm and insoluble cold acetone is the preferred solvent however because of its cost and ease of handling and compatibility with the general solvent needs of an extraction facility it should also be mentioned that this invention is not specific.