Evaluation of carotenoid and capsaicinoid contents in powder of red chili peppers during one year of storage

The color and the pungency of red chili pepper powder, depending on the carotenoid and capsaicinoid contents, are important properties for this food ingredient. In this study the patterns of these two classes of compounds have been analyzed in samples of red chili powder during one year of storage at room temperature (20–24 °C) and at low temperature (−18 °C), in order to investigate the eventual chemical changes occurring during storage, and to find a possible correlation between the behavior of the two groups of molecules. During storage at roomtemperature, both carotenoid and capsaicinoid amountswere found to decrease progressively following a linear kinetics. After 12 months free carotenoids decreased to 20% of the initial value, and total capsaicinoids to 75%. All classes of carotenoids were found to be highly correlated with total capsaicinoids, thus showing that the molecules as the object of the study were subjected to similar kinetics. During storage at low temperature carotenoids decrease with lower rate (free carotenoids reached 66% of the initial value after 12 months) and capsaicinoids were almost unaltered.