Yunnan edible flowers and their potential in future foods: focus on ethnological applications, chemical and pharmacological research

Abstract

With the increasing demand for high quality food products, there is a growing interest in functional foods and nutritional supplements, and edible flowers are widely consumed due to their health benefits. Since Yunnan (China) is the “Flower Kingdom” and most of them have a variety of ethnological applications, it is essential to take advantage of the rich resources to explore the bioactive potential of edible flowers and develop various types of nutritional and functional foods to meet people's nutritional needs. This paper presents a comprehensive review of edible flowers in Yunnan with the most ethnically distinctive and biologically active flowers as representatives. Among them, flavonoids, terpenoids, phenolic acids, and coumarins are the major chemical constituents. They showed diverse pharmacological effects including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, anti-diabetic, and hypoglycemic, and the mechanisms presented the characteristics of multi-target of the active ingredients. This paper aimed to provide a sound scientific basis for the development and utilization of edible flowers in Yunnan.