Carotenoids of Hungarian wheat flour

Abstract

Whether or not wheat flour contains provitamin A in amounts which could be of any importance for general nutrition is a question of considerable interest. Since Wesener and Teller (1) as well as Monier-Williams (2) considered carotene, C40H56, to be the chief fat-soluble pigment of flour, this claim has been more or less supported by numerous authors (3). It was, however, correctly pointed out in the short reviews given by Widmark and Neymark (4) and by Jörgensen (5) that the reported carotene content of flour decreased with increased progress in this field. While Ferrari and Bailey (6) considered "carotin" the chief component of the coloring matter, it is rightly stated in an important paper by Markley and Bailey (7) that only a fraction of the wheat carotenoids can consist of carotene; e.g., one-third to one-seventh of the total pigment. These figures are, however, still much too high. Malmberg and von Euler (8) were unable to detect any carotene at all in 100 gm. of wheat, and they found xanthophyll, C40H56O2, to be the chief polyene, in accordance with the data of Bowden and Moore (9) who proved the presence of xanthophyll in wheat germ oil. According to our new chromatographic experiments, only a small part of the carefully saponified pigment shows an epiphasic behavior, and even this fraction can easily be separated from added β-carotene in the Tswett column. Consequently we claim that the analyzed, unbleached flours are practically or absolutely free of carotene, the carotene content being less than 0.01 mg. per kilo in any case. Other samples are under investigation, but even our whole wheat flour does not contain much more carotene or xanthophyll than fine grade samples.

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