Dietary Sources of Luteolin

Luteolin comes from ordinary kitchen plants — celery, parsley, thyme, sweet and hot peppers, and chamomile are among the richest everyday sources. It is not a single “superfood” nutrient but a component of a Mediterranean, herb-and-vegetable pattern of eating. Two facts shape everything on this page: dried herbs are far more concentrated than fresh because water has been removed, and luteolin is poorly absorbed, so how much you eat is only part of the story. This page maps the real food sources, explains why the same herb can look weak (fresh) or extraordinary (dried) depending on how it is measured, and gives an honest account of the bioavailability problem that limits how much of what you eat actually reaches your bloodstream.

Table of Contents

  1. Where Luteolin Is Found: The Short List
  2. Celery and Celery Seed
  3. Parsley — Fresh and Dried
  4. Thyme and the Mediterranean Herbs
  5. Sweet and Chili Peppers
  6. Chamomile and Herbal Teas
  7. Other Notable Sources
  8. How Luteolin Travels in Food: Aglycone vs Glycosides
  9. The Bioavailability Problem
  10. Getting Enough From Food
  11. Key Research Papers
  12. Connections
  13. Featured Videos

Where Luteolin Is Found: The Short List

Luteolin is concentrated in a fairly specific set of plants — it is not spread evenly across the food supply the way, say, potassium is. The everyday sources worth knowing:

Food-composition surveys such as Miean and Mohamed (2001) confirmed this pattern, quantifying luteolin and its sister flavone apigenin across edible plants and repeatedly finding the herb-and-celery family at the top. A useful mental model: if a plant is a green Mediterranean herb or a celery relative (the Apiaceae family — celery, parsley, carrot tops), it is a good bet for luteolin.

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Celery and Celery Seed

Celery is the food most associated with luteolin in the popular literature, and for good reason — it is a reliable source, and it is eaten in meaningful quantities (unlike a garnish-sized sprig of herb). The luteolin is present throughout the plant, with the leaves generally richer than the pale inner stalks, and celery seed being a notably concentrated source used as a spice. Because celery is often eaten raw and in salad-sized portions, it contributes a steadier baseline of luteolin than herbs used only in pinches.

For the whole-food profile of celery beyond its luteolin content, see the Celery page.

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Parsley — Fresh and Dried

Parsley is consistently one of the highest-luteolin foods in composition databases. There is an important nuance here that recurs with all herbs: dried parsley measures far higher than fresh, because drying removes water and concentrates the flavones by weight. A tablespoon of dried parsley therefore carries much more luteolin than the same weight of fresh — but you also eat far less of it. In practice, both count: a generous handful of fresh parsley in a tabbouleh or chimichurri, or dried parsley worked into a spice blend, both make a real contribution.

Parsley is a member of the same Apiaceae family as celery, which is part of why the two share this flavone-rich profile. Note that the site's culinary-herb coverage focuses on other herbs; use fresh flat-leaf parsley generously in cooking as a simple, safe way to raise luteolin intake.

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Thyme and the Mediterranean Herbs

The dried Mediterranean herbs — thyme, oregano, rosemary, and sage — are, gram for gram, among the most flavone-dense foods that exist, and dried oregano in particular is repeatedly among the very highest luteolin sources measured. This is the concentration effect taken to its extreme: a dried herb is essentially the plant with nearly all the water removed, so its per-gram flavone content is enormous.

The catch, again, is portion size. You sprinkle a teaspoon of dried thyme on a dish, not a cupful, so the total luteolin delivered is smaller than the eye-popping per-100-gram figures suggest. Still, a cooking style that leans on Mediterranean herbs — thyme in a braise, oregano on a tomato sauce, rosemary with roasted vegetables — adds up across a week and is one of the pleasant, low-effort ways to eat more luteolin. See the Thyme page for that herb's broader profile.

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Sweet and Chili Peppers

Peppers (Capsicum species) are a solid luteolin source and, like celery, are eaten in real portions rather than pinches. Green sweet peppers and various chili and hot peppers contribute luteolin along with a range of other flavonoids and, of course, vitamin C. Because peppers are versatile and eaten raw or lightly cooked in salad-sized amounts, they are a practical everyday contributor rather than a trace garnish.

As with all of these foods, exact luteolin content varies by variety, ripeness, growing conditions, and whether the pepper is raw, cooked, or dried — which is the honest reason this page avoids quoting single precise milligram figures that would imply a false precision.

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Chamomile and Herbal Teas

Chamomile is a well-known dietary source of luteolin and its glycosides, delivered as a warm-water infusion — chamomile tea. Analytical work such as Ishizaki and colleagues (2024), which measured luteolin and apigenin in herbal teas, confirms that these flavones pass into the brewed cup, though apigenin is the more famous chamomile flavone. Because chamomile is consumed as a large volume of liquid, it is an easy, pleasant vehicle for a modest dose of luteolin, and it carries chamomile's own traditional calming associations.

See the Chamomile page for the herb's full profile.

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Other Notable Sources

The consistent theme across all of these is that luteolin is a marker of a plant-rich, herb-forward, Mediterranean-style diet — the same dietary pattern independently associated with better long-term health. This is why the population data (for example, Yao and colleagues 2024, linking higher dietary luteolin to lower mortality) are best read as reflecting an overall eating pattern, not proof that luteolin alone is responsible.

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How Luteolin Travels in Food: Aglycone vs Glycosides

In plants, luteolin usually does not float around as the bare molecule (the “aglycone”). It is most often attached to a sugar, forming a glycoside — luteolin-7-O-glucoside is the most common. This matters for absorption:

Shimoi and colleagues (1998) directly studied the intestinal absorption of both luteolin and luteolin-7-glucoside in rats and humans, establishing that the sugar form is handled differently from the free form. The practical upshot is that the “luteolin content” printed for a food is not the same as the “luteolin absorbed,” because it depends on which chemical form dominates and on your individual gut microbiome.

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The Bioavailability Problem

This is the single most important honesty note on the page. Luteolin is poorly water-soluble and poorly absorbed, and what does get absorbed is rapidly transformed by the liver and gut into glucuronide and sulfate conjugates and cleared. As a result, the blood levels achieved after eating luteolin-rich food are much lower than the concentrations used to produce the dramatic effects in the cell-culture studies described on the other pages.

Several practical consequences follow:

None of this means food luteolin is worthless — population studies still associate higher intake with benefit — but it is the reason to treat luteolin as one healthful component of a good diet rather than a potent drug you can simply swallow.

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Getting Enough From Food

There is no official recommended intake for luteolin — it is a beneficial dietary bioactive, not an essential nutrient, so no deficiency disease exists and no Daily Value has been set. The sensible goal is simply to make luteolin-rich foods a regular habit:

This is the same advice that supports overall health: a varied, plant-rich, herb-forward, Mediterranean-style diet. Luteolin is one of the reasons that pattern works, not a shortcut around it.

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Key Research Papers

  1. Miean KH, Mohamed S (2001). Flavonoid (myricetin, quercetin, kaempferol, luteolin, and apigenin) content of edible tropical plants. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. — PubMed 11410016
  2. Shimoi K et al. (1998). Intestinal absorption of luteolin and luteolin 7-O-beta-glucoside in rats and humans. FEBS Letters. — PubMed 9827549
  3. López-Lázaro M (2009). Distribution and biological activities of the flavonoid luteolin. Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry. — PubMed 19149659
  4. Somerset SM, Johannot L (2008). Dietary flavonoid sources in Australian adults. Nutrition and Cancer. — PubMed 18584477
  5. Yao X et al. (2024). Dietary intake of luteolin is negatively associated with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. BMC Public Health. — PubMed 39080632
  6. Ishizaki A et al. (2024). Determination of Luteolin and Apigenin in Herbal Teas by Online In-Tube Solid-Phase Microextraction. Foods. — PubMed 38890915
  7. Hertog MGL et al. (1993). Dietary antioxidant flavonoids and risk of coronary heart disease: the Zutphen Elderly Study. The Lancet. — PubMed 8105262
  8. Jin S et al. (2021). The association of dietary flavonoids, magnesium and their interactions with the metabolic syndrome. British Journal of Nutrition. — PubMed 33256855
  9. Hong JK et al. (2026). Calcium carbonate hybrid microcomposite for oral delivery of luteolin, a poorly water-soluble polyphenol. Food Chemistry. — PubMed 41483986
  10. Shi M et al. (2024). Luteolin, a flavone ingredient: Anticancer mechanisms, combined medication strategy, pharmacokinetics. Phytotherapy Research. — PubMed 38088265

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Connections

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