The USDA-HCRU food chemistry program focuses on enhancing the natural phytochemical content of foods. Our main compounds of interest are phenolics, which are important plant secondary metabolites. We continue to investigate and increase our understanding of the role these compounds perform in foods (grape, grape product, elderberry, blueberry, basil, black raspberry, etc) by analytical method development, compositional analysis, altered processing methods, etc for maximum retention of these compounds. Our aim is improving quality from the field all the way to packaged products.
Contact Scientist: Jungmin Lee