**1. Introduction**

The oldest macroremains unambiguously identified as maize (*Zea mays*) were retrieved from preceramic strata of dry caves in two states of Mexico: Puebla (Tehuacan Valley) and Tamaulipas (Ocampo Caves). These were found with microremains of pepper (*Capsicum*) and squash (*Cucurbit asp)* and other species used by humans. Archeological strata, suggesting a rough date

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

for this foods around 9000–7000 B.P. [1]. In different myths, leyends and codices prehispanics civilizations Olmecas, Mayan and Mexican showing the prominent position of corn. For example, one myth the Mexica gods of corn: Tell us that corn was created after the goddess Centéotl sank into the ground to make vegetables to feed the people. It was in the wake of that event that cotton, huazantle, chia, sweet potato and corn began to grow from the ground. The Mexican Indians called corn as "the plant of the gods" [2].

At this time, corn (*Zea mays*) is the most important cereal that is produced in the world, the white and yellow corns are more used, the world production of maize was 987 million metric tons (MMT) and the United States of America (USA) is the largest producer and Mexico is the sixth producing country [3].

In the world, corn is generally used for animal feed and biofuels. In Mexico, this cereal is used for making foods; maize grains are consumed fresh (elotes and esquites, boiled grains) or processed in the form of dough or cornmeal for the preparation of some foods: dishes (tortillas), corn flakes (salads and sweets totopos), starch (atoles and pinole), tamale dough (tamales), fermented foods (pozol and atoles), boiled or steamed corn (pozole), soups (chilaquiles), bakery products and another foods. Some foods and grains of maizes are depicted in **Figure 1**.

The colorful corns are less common while the white and yellow are the most popular. All parts such as silk, cob, leaves, husk and kernel of corns have been used by people at remote time to Mesoamerican civilization, the pigment corns referred to as blue, red or purple corn are botanically the same species white and yellow. This cereal was used in the preparation to color foods and beverages. The interest on pigmented (blue, red and purple) corn is due to the bioactive compounds; these are anthocyanins, *p*-hydroxycinnamic acids, flavonoids and to minor proportion carotenoids, phytoesterols, vitamin E, lignans, policosanols and xylans. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of bioactive compounds and of the

biological activity of the purple, red and blue corns in all parts of the plant including pericarp of the grain (kernel), silk (seda), inflorescence (espiga), husk (totomoxtle) and corn cobs

Bioactive Compounds in Pigmented Maize http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.78340 71

Anthocyanins are the largest group of phenolic pigments responsible for the pink, red, purple and blue corns which is the cereal with most anthocyanin content [4]. For that reason, the pigmented corn has caught attention in research and production. There is a great diversity in types of corn including sweet corn, popcorn, pod corn, flint corn, flour corn, waxy corn and dent corn; everyone is able to have different variety of color as shown in **Figure 3**, which give us opportunity to get a great source of anthocyanins using the whole plant because, according with the variety of corn, the silk, corn husk and corn cob could have more anthocyanins than

(olote). The plant parts typical to corn are shown in **Figure 2**.

**Figure 2.** Organs of the corn plant. Painting by Esteban Torres 2018.

**2. Anthocyanin in pigmented corn**

kernel, as we will see in later section.

**Figure 1.** Food products elaborated with pigmented corn.

**Figure 2.** Organs of the corn plant. Painting by Esteban Torres 2018.

biological activity of the purple, red and blue corns in all parts of the plant including pericarp of the grain (kernel), silk (seda), inflorescence (espiga), husk (totomoxtle) and corn cobs (olote). The plant parts typical to corn are shown in **Figure 2**.
