ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a thorough view on health promoting compounds in fruits and vegetables for humans. Fruits and vegetables have long been known for their health promoting properties. Alkaloids are important class of plant derived basic organic compounds that are known to produce striking physiological responses in human. Fruits and vegetables are called protective foods because of their health promoting properties. They contain a number of bioactive phytochemicals which include polypenolic compounds, carotenoids, organosulfur compounds, phytosterol, alkaloids and dietary fibers. The most common sterols in fruits, vegetables and berries are sitosterol, campesterol, stigmasterol and avenasterols. Plant sterols are cholesterol like compounds commonly present in vegetable oils and cereals. Fruits and vegetables are not the primary source of phytosterols and seldom have a concentration above 200–300 mg per kg fresh weight. Carotenoids are found either in the chloroplast membrane or in chromoplasts. Carotenoids are present in chromoplast in different physical forms in different plant species.
