Comparison of metabolites in juice, seed and peel of sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L. subsp. sinensis)

Sea buckthorn, a functional food, can provide several nutritious substances useful for human health. As we know, its peels and seeds are removed as inedible parts during processing. However, whether the peels and seeds have the nutritious substances that juice does not. The nutritious metabolites in the peels, juice, and seeds of Shanxi’s wild sea buckthorn were analyzed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole exactive Orbitrap mass spectrometry. A total of 456 metabolites were detected. Sixty-five of them were exclusively found in the peels, 55 were exclusively found in the juice, and 130 were exclusively found in the seeds. We found that several flavonoids, purines, nucleotides, and resveratrol were removed during the processing. This meant that we could get only a portion of the nutrition from the sea buckthorn juice in our daily lives. We suggest that peels and seeds should be added in a certain proportion during the processing, in order to obtain more nutrients from sea buckthorn.