Natural colors for creating new food colors

Food coloring is currently in a state of flux (synthetic & natural coloring)

Food coloring is a type of food additive that is used to improve the appearance of objects. It comes in two varieties: natural and synthetic. However, with the continuous development of toxicology and analytical chemistry in the binmei twentieth century, people gradually understood the principle of synthetic color transformation into human body, and realized that most synthetic colors have serious chronic viral and teratogenic effects on human body. With the continuous improvement of food additive regulations in various countries, more and more non-compliant synthetic colors have been removed, and the edible synthetic colors currently allowed in China, according to the national GB2760-2014 "Food Additive Use Standards of National Food Safety Standards," include erythrosine, quinoline yellow, lemon yellow, sunset yellow, amaranthine, carmine, amaranthine and carmine. There are 11 different types of amaranth red, carmine, new red, temptation red, azo jade red (acid red), bright spirulina concentrateblue, and indigo.

As people's living standards rise, more and more consumers are paying attention to the "health and naturalness" of the food industry, and natural colors are increasingly being used in a variety of foods. Natural pigments are obtained from animals, plants, microorganisms, and other natural resources, and purified and refined pigments; their colors are mild, safe, and non-toxic, and are frequently used to improve the color of food; according to the type of chemical structure can be divided into polyene pigments, phenolic pigments, pyrrole pigments, pyridine pigments, quinone pigments, and other types of pigments; (such as heme, anthocyanin, anthocyanin, etc.). Animal pigments (such as heme, carotenoids, etc.), microbial pigments (such as red pigment, etc.), and fat-soluble pigments (such as anthocyanin, etc.) are divided into three categories based on solubility (such as chlorophyll, carotenoids, etc.). According to China's GB2760-2014 "Food Safety National Standard for the Use of Food Additives," there are currently 58 types of natural pigments permitted in China, with a high demand for each natural food coloring, and China is one of the few countries in the world that allows the use of more natural coloring agents. However, scientific research in recent years has confirmed that natural pigments contain special chemical groups, so they have their own biological activity and regulation of physiological effects, which may play an important role in the prevention of chronic diseases, and thus gradually cause the attention of the nutrition industry, in food, cosmetics, medicine, and health care, and other fields of use.

There are numerous species with complex characteristics.

Natural pigments are classified into several types.

1, polyene pigments, namely carotenoids, are mainly distributed in a class of biological pigments displaying yellow, orange, red, and even purple; is a fat-soluble pigment, is composed of isoprene residues as a module of the conjugated double bond long chain as the core of a class of compounds, mainly containing carotenoids and lutein, such as -carotene, -carotene, lycopene, They are vitamin A precursors that are important in antioxidant, anticancer, immune enhancement, and cardiovascular protection. At the moment, the global annual production of natural carotenoids is nearly 100 million tons, with extensive product development and application.

2Polyphenolic pigments, primarily anthocyanins, anthocyanins, and so on. Anthocyanins are a class of important water-soluble plant pigments that are mostly fused with sugar in the form of glycosides; anthocyanins usually refer to flavonoids and compounds, a class of water-soluble yellow substances found in the flowers, fruits, stems, and leaf cells of plants that are glycosidically fused with glucose, rhamnose, cloud sugar, and so on.

3, flavonoid pigment, is a water-soluble pigment with a ketone carbonyl structure, its compounds are mostly yellow, with free radical scavenging, inhibition of lipid peroxidation, delay aging, and other effects, which are more widely used in food, pharmaceuticals, and other fields. Turmeric, for example, has antioxidant, anti-swelling, anti-bacterial, anti-cancer, and other effects; sea buckthorn yellow pigment, found primarily in the sea buckthorn peel, has a bright color, strong coloring power, is safe andspirulina powder blue reliable, and can also improve taste.

4, quinone pigment, that is, compounds with a quinone structure or that can biosynthesize quinone, are quinone pigments, such as comfrey in comfrey and iso-comfrey, orange alizarin in comfrey, and so on; has strong biological activity, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-virus, anti-aging, and anti-cancer properties.

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