Abstract: With the growing demand for natural functional ingredients, safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.), a traditional resource with both food and medicinal uses, has attracted increasing interest for compliant application and bioactive ingredient development in the food sector. This review summarizes the regulatory requirements and safety evidence for safflower-related food products, outlines the structural characteristics of its representative constituents including hydroxysafflower yellow A, linoleic acid, and polyphenolamides, and discusses mechanistic evidence supporting their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cardiocerebrovascular protective, and metabolic modulatory effects. Key challenges in the food-oriented utilization of safflower such as unclear compliance boundaries, limited processing/storage stability, inadequate quality evaluation systems, and insufficient dose-exposure-efficacy evidence are highlighted. To bridge these gaps, factors affecting the stability of safflower pigments and seed oil as well as feasible stabilized delivery strategies are discussed. A precise quality control strategy combining fingerprint profiling and multi-component quantification is proposed, and a development framework covering regulatory access, functional evaluation, raw material grading, and precision nutrition-based formulation design is established. The review aims to provide a theoretical reference for the high-value utilization of safflower resources and the development of safflower-based foods.

Key words: safflower; bioactive constituents; biological functions; food applications; stability; quality control