Tocopherol and carotenoid content of foods commonly consumed in Costa Rica

This article presents the first Costa Rican database on food carotenoids and tocopherols. The report concerning the content of these nutrients in foods that are common to the Latin American diet and to native Costa Rican varieties and cultivars is particularly important. Celery, which includes the leaves in Costa Rica, shows the highest content of lutein + zeaxanthin (26,400 μg/100 g) and β-carotene (16,200 μg/100 g), and is ranked fourth as a source of α-carotene (168 μg/100 g). The amount of lutein + zeaxanthin and β-cryptoxanthin present in Costa Rican red peppers is significantly high (2600 and 730 μg/100 g, respectively) and the amount of lycopene provided by 100 g of sardines canned in tomato sauce is higher (3300 μg/100 g) than the same amount of home-style tomato sauce (1420 μg/100 g) or raw tomato (1260 μg/100 g). Soybean oil has the highest δ-tocopherol content of all oils and is second to corn oil in γ-tocopherol content. Olive and sunflower oil have the highest α-tocopherol content. However, the content of α-tocopherol in celery and broccoli stands out. On average, these vegetables provide only 3 mg/100 g less of α-tocopherol than sunflower oil (12 mg/100 g and 15 mg/100 g, respectively). The reported data, together with the recently published Brazilian database on food carotenoids, could be the first step towards the systematic development of a Latin America carotenoid and tocopherol food composition database.