Intake of vegetables and vegetable pigments during a lunch meal in Norwegian canteens with salad bars

Summary

Lunch canteens and their salad bars are an important arena for sales and consumption of vegetables including herbs. One major Norwegian canteen operator had a turnover of more than seven thousand tons of fresh vegetables in 2016, with lettuce, tomato, potato, cucumber and bell pepper being the most important species. A typical lunch meal included about 260 g vegetables including potatoes. Vegetables used in 450 canteens were either green, yellow, orange, red, purple/dark or colorless, and consisted of pigments of chlorophylls, carotenoids, anthocyanins and betalains. The total pigment content in the 60 most abundant vegetables was calculated to be 14.5-28.3 mg 100 g-1 FW. Of all vegetables in the canteens, 60% were found to be green. The intake of chlorophyll through one lunch meal was estimated to be 46 mg. Lettuce was found to be the single most important source of chlorophylls as this species was consumed in high amounts and made up 20% of the vegetables in a lunch meal. Carotenoids was found in all colored vegetables except the purple/dark ones and an estimate revealed an intake of 15 mg total carotenoids from lunch vegetables. Tomato was found to be the most important carotenoid source representing 44% of the total intake. Due to high pigment concentrations and popularity of red beets in the salad bars, the intake of betalains through a lunch meal was estimated to be 3 mg, similar to the total intake of anthocyanins from vegetable species.