**4. Conclusions**

Hairless canary seed is a true cereal grain with unique nutritional profile that makes it a suitable functional food ingredient. For the first time detailed composition of carotenoids in HCS has been identified based on UPLC and LC-MS/MS analyses. Hairless canary seed and corn were fairly rich in carotenoids compared with other cereal grains having a total content of 7.6 and 12.9 µg/g, respectively. HCS is rich in lutein and its mono- and di-esters especially lutein 3-*O*-linoleate, lutein 3-*O*-oleate and lutein di-linoleate, while corn is rich in free lutein and zeaxanthin. Thus, they might complement each other in their carotenoid composition in terms of lutein stability and bioavailability. Baking process resulted in significant reductions in carotenoids in muffin and bread products. It appears that batter or dough preparation causes more reductions in carotenoids than oven baking probably due to enzymatic oxidation and degradation. In addition, muffin-making resulted in lower lutein reductions compared to the bread-making process. Thus, muffins made from hairless canary seed alone or in blends with corn could boost the daily intake of lutein and/or zeaxanthin. Further research is underway to assess the bioavailability of carotenoids in HCS muffin and bread products.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following supporting information can be downloaded.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, E.-S.M.A.-A.; methodology, I.R. and L.M.; validation, E.-S.M.A.-A., L.M. and I.R.; formal analysis, E.-S.M.A.-A., L.M. and I.R.; resources, E.-S.M.A.-A.; data curation, E.-S.M.A.-A.; writing—Original draft preparation, E.-S.M.A.-A.; writing—Review and editing, E.-S.M.A.-A.; L.M. and I.R.; supervision, E.-S.M.A.-A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada grant number J-002260 And The APC was funded by A-base project J-002260.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** This work is supported by the A-base project J-002260 of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The authors thank Claire Traversa for her technical support in product preparation and analysis, Honghui Zhu for her technical support in the MS analysis, Kevin Hursh at the Canary Seed Development Commission of Saskatchewan for providing the hairless canary seed sample and Pierre Hucl from the University of Saskatchewan for providing the wheat sample.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

