Total and individual carotenoids and phenolic acids content in fresh, refrigerated and processed spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.)

Andrea Bunea; Mirjana Andjelkovic; Carmen Socaciu; Otilia Bobis; Madalina Neacsu; Roland Verhé; John Van Camp

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2007.11.056

Total and individual carotenoids and phenolic acids content in fresh, refrigerated and processed spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.)

Food Chem. 2008 May 15;108(2):649-56. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2007.11.056. Epub 2007 Nov 29.

Authors

Andrea Bunea¹, Mirjana Andjelkovic², Carmen Socaciu¹, Otilia Bobis¹, Madalina Neacsu¹, Roland Verhé³, John Van Camp⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
² Department of Food Safety and Food Quality, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium; Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium. Electronic address: mirjana.andjelkovic@ugent.be.
³ Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium.
⁴ Department of Food Safety and Food Quality, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium.

PMID: 26059144
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2007.11.056

Abstract

The carotenoid and phenolic acid contents in fresh, stored and processed (blanched, frozen and boiled) spinach were comparatively determined by spectrophotometric and HPLC analyses. The major carotenoids identified after HPLC analysis in saponified samples were lutein (37-53μg/kg), β-carotene (18-31μg/kg), violaxanthin (9-23μg/kg) and neoxanthin (10-22μg/kg). These carotenoids were all affected by storage and/or heating. The content of carotenoids was best preserved after storage for one day at 4°C. The total phenolic content in the fresh spinach was 2088mg GAE/kg FW. After LC-MS analysis three phenolic acids were identified and quantified. These being ortho-coumaric acid (28-60mg/kg FW), ferulic acid (10-35mg/kg) and para-coumaric acid (1-30mg/kg) depending on the sample type. After storage of spinach at different temperatures (4°C or -18°C) the amount of total phenolic compounds decreased by around 20%, while the amount of individual phenolic acids increased by four times on average.

Keywords: Carotenoids; Chromatography; Mass-spectroscopy; Phenolic compounds; Processing; Spectrophotometry; Storage.