Vegetables carotenoid content

HART J D and SCOTT K J (1995) Development and evaluation of an HPLC method for the analysis of carotenoids in foods and the measurement of carotenoid content of vegetables and fruits commonly consumed in the UK. Food Chem. 54(1) 101-111. 

Table 13.2 Carotenoid content of raw leafy green vegetables...

Daily consumption of various fruits, vegetables, and derived juices contributes to human intake of carotenoids. The estimation of carotenoid intakes has been made possible throngh publication of the qnalitative and qnantitative carotenoid contents of commonly consnmed foods. Average intake estimates in the United States are around 6.5 mg/day. In seven conntries in Enrope, the average total carotenoid intake based on the snm of the five carotenoids was approximately 14 mg/day. When dietary source of carotenoids were analyzed, carrots appeared as the major sonrces of p-carotene in all conntries except Spain, where spinach was the main contribntor. 

Muller, H., Determination of the carotenoid content in selected vegetables and fruit by HPLC and photodiode array detection, Z. Lebensm. Enters. Forsch. A, 204, 88, 1997. 

Factors Influencing Carotenoid Content in Fruits and Vegetables... 

Mclnerney JK, Seccafien CA, Stewart CM and Bird AR. 2007. Effects of high pressure processing on antioxidant activity, and total carotenoid content and availability, in vegetables. Innov Food Sci Emerg Technol 8 543-548. 

Carotenoids A large number of solvents have been used for extraction of carotenoids from vegetables matrices, such as acetone, tetrahydrofuran, n-hexane, pentane, ethanol, methanol, chloroform [427-431], or solvent mixtures such as dichloromethane/methanol, tetrahydrofuran/methanol, -hexane/acetone, or toluene or ethyl acetate [424,432-435], SPE has been used as an additional purification step by some authors [422,426], Supercritical fluid extraction (SEE) has been widely used, as an alternative method, also adding CO2 modifiers (such as methanol, ethanol, -hexane, water, methylene chloride) to increase extraction efficiency [436-438], In addition, saponification can be carried out, but a loss of the total carotenoid content has been observed and, furthermore, direct solvent extraction has been proved to be a valid alternative [439],... 

In natural tissues, carotenoids generally occur as complex mixtures of many substances in orange juice, for instance, more than 50 carotenoids were identified. A survey of the carotenoid content in some fruits and vegetables is given in Refs. 19 and 20. Differences due to variety, site, and maturity must be considered. 

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