Carotenoids are indispensable to plants and play a critical role in human nutrition and health. Carotenoids have long been recognized as essential nutrients and important health beneficial compounds. As humans are unable to synthesize carotenoids, they have to depend on diet for these essential products. “Pro-vitamin A” carotenoids, such as β-carotene, provide the primary dietary sources of vitamin A. The deficiency of vitamin A is one of the most noticeable nutritional problems in many parts of the world. Over recent years there has been considerable interest in dietary carotenoids with respect to their potential in alleviating age-related diseases in humans.  Food biofortification with enhanced pro-vitamin A carotenoids offers a sustainable way to combat vitamin A deficiency in developing countries.

It have been know that food sources of carotenoids include carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, kale, collard greens, and tomatoes. Less research has reported the caroteniods in Chinese cabbage. Chinese cabbage is a member of the Cruciferae family, and is more closely related to mustard than to cabbage. Though seemingly new to Southern diets, Chinese cabbage has been cultivated in North America for more than a century and in China for almost 1,500 years. Chinese cabbage is low in calories and low in sodium, but high in vitamin A, and is an excellent source of provitamin A carotenoids.

Nine varieties of Chinese cabbages were investigated for B-carotene, lutein, zeazanthin and violazanthin, the most common carotenoids in leafy vegetables. Separation and identification were conducted using High-Performance Liqid Chromatography (HPLC) and spectroscopic properties of each carotenoid. Seven varieties happen to contain varying concentrations of one or more of the four carotenoids. B-carotene and lutein appear to be more frequent, while zeazanthin occurs in only one variety.