Abstract:

With beneficial functions for health, carotenoids are a group of secondary metabolites from cells. They are widely distributed in foods. A comprehensive understanding of carotenoid distribution in foods has been achieved by the promotion of modern analytical technology, especially the development of high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) technique. Currently, it is necessary to make summarized conclusions from plenty of analytical data and to process confused results. For those purposes, this article reviews data on carotenoid distribution in foods and makes an attempt to draw a summarized conclusion. Additionally, it is also suggested in this article that variations in both culture conditions and heredity of a species result in a variation in its carotenoid amount. Data from those analyses should be applied properly. With a scope for future work, it is outlined to undertake a number of projects such as the exploration of relationship between carotenoids and health, the bioavailability promotion of carotenoids from foods, novel resource discovery and so on.

Key words: carotenoid, food, distribution, analysis