Hop and Medicinal Plants, Year XXXI, No. 1-2, 2023 ISSN 2360 – 0179 print, ISSN 2360 – 0187 electronic 138 Maize and Its Use in Human Food POPA Călin 1,2 , Roxana CĂLUGĂR 2* , Florin RUSSU 2 , Andrei VARGA 2 , Leon MUNTEAN 1 1 University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Crop Science, 3-5 Calea Mănăștur, 400372, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 2 Agricultural Research and Development Station Turda 27 Agriculturii, 401100, Turda, Cluj, Romania *Correspondence: roxana.calugar@scdaturda.ro Abstract: Maize is an important source of nutrition that also plays an important role in preventing chronic diseases. Maize is used in both human and animal feed. To improve the biochemical content, remarkable results have been obtained in terms of improving the content with starch (amylose and amylopectin), proteins (lysine, tryptophan, carotenoids), sugars or oil. The inbred lines from the Agricultural Research and Development Station Turda germplasm collection, with an increased content in the previously mentioned components, are used in maize breeding programs, both for the improvement of the inbred lines uses as the parental genotypes, through the use of backcrossing, and for the creation of new hybrids, superior from a qualitative point of view. Keywords: carotenoid, human food, maize, protein. Introduction At the world level, maize occupies the second place in terms of area, being surpassed by wheat but from the point of view of the total production obtained, maize is ahead of wheat (FAOSTAT, 2023). According to the same source, between 2019 and 2021, worldwide between 194-205 million hectares were cultivated with maize with total productions of about 1.2 billion tons obtained. Through the large areas it occupies, but especially through the productions it achieves, humanity is largely dependent on maize, in providing food (Cristea, 2004). Due to the chemical composition of all its constituent parts, maize, in addition to its nutritional importance for humans, is also a