Brassica napus L.

Publisher Summary A large number of pigments in living organisms—carotenoids, chlorophylls, anthocyanins, and porphyrins—provide the rich variety of color in nature. The carotenoids—believed to have derived their name from the fact that they constitute the major pigment in the carrot root, Daucus carota—are among the most widespread and important. This group of pigments is found throughout the plant kingdom and in insects, birds, and other animals. These pigments provide a whole range of light yellow to dark red colorings; and, when complexed with proteins, they produce green and blue color ations. Thus, a wide variety of foods and feeds, for example, yellow vegetables, tomatoes, apricots, oranges, egg yolk, chicken, butter, shrimp, lobster, salmon, trout, and yellow corn, owe their color principally to carotenoids, as do certain food color extracts from natural sources such as palm oil, paprika, annatto, and saffron. A new frontier in carotenoid research has been the examination of a possible association between carotenoids and the development and prevention of cancer. Through these actions, it has been suggested that carotenoids may play important roles in cancer causation and prevention.

[14] Natural sources of carotenoids from plants and oils

2 – carotenoids as food colors

Crude palm oil is the richest natural plant source of carotenoids in terms of retinol (provitamin A) equivalent. This article reports on »the carotenoids found in palm oil, its fractions, byproduct...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/156482659401500212

Palm Oil Carotenoids

Minor components and oxidative stability of cold-pressed oil from rapeseed cultivars in China

The amounts of the different carotenoids (lutein, lutein monoesters and diesters) in soybean and rapeseed oil were determined through a combination of column chromatography and UV spectrometry. The lutein diesters in the oils have been isolated by a combination of column and thin layer chromatography. Identification and determination of the amount of the various fatty acids of the lutein diesters have been carried out by means of gas chromatography after transesterification of the fatty acids to their methyl esters. Comparison of the fatty acids of the lutein diesters with those of the triglycerides of the oils revealed a striking difference. First, the fatty acids of the lutein diesters have shorter chains than the triglycerides acids. Secondly, the lutein fatty acids are more saturated than the fatty acids of the triglycerides of the corresponding oils. However the amount of linoleic acid in the case of the fatty acids of the lutein diesters in rapeseed oil is greater than that in the fatty acids of the triglycerides in rapeseed oil.

G. Van Den Bosch

Papers

Fatty acid composition of carotenoid esters in soybean and rapeseed oils