HOW TO OPTIMIZE THE CONTENT OF BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS – EFFECTS OF CULTIVAR, HARVEST TIME AND PROCESSING IN ORANGE, YELLOW AND RED CARROTS

Compounds in fruit and vegetables have been suggested to exert the health-promoting effect resulting in lower risk of some common diseases with a diet higher in these products.
Since the health beneficial effect has been attributed to certain compounds, individually, or in synergistic combination, it is of interest to increase knowledge of which factors that influence the levels of these compounds.
The differences in the content of vitamin C, polyacetylenes and carotenoids in a range of orange and red cultivars of carrot were analysed by HPLC, and the effect of harvest date was also investigated in the red cultivars.
In addition, the effects of different processing steps were investigated in orange, yellow and red carrots.
Large differences were found in the content of polyacetylenes and carotenoids between cultivars and with the size of the carrots.
Different processing steps were found to affect the content of vitamin C and polyacetylenes to different extent.
In addition, the processing did not affect the different colours of carrot in a similar way, which might implicate a possible interaction among the investigated compounds.
By proper selec-tion of carrots, and by a combination of colours, cultivars and harvest praxis, the content of these compounds could be optimised.

XXVIII International Horticultural Congress on Science and Horticulture for People (IHC2010): International Symposium on Emerging Health Topics in Fruits and Vegetables

M.E. Olsson, K.-E. Gustavsson, R. Stegmark, S. Nyström

Daucus carota, antioxidant, polyacetylenes, falcarinol, falcarindiol, carotenoids, vitamin C

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.939.8