Safety of Some Synthetic Food Colours: Review

Food additives are used to protect food, increase quality and extend shelf life in many stages, from production to consumption of food. Colorants added by food producers to color food or to adjust the color to desired level are among the commonly used food additives. Considering today's developing production technologies, foods fade or discolor at various stages of processing, storage, and sale due to physical and chemical conditions such as heat, light, pH and oxygen. Colorants are used to regain these color losses, to enhance weak colors, to give color to the food that is actually colorless, and to win back the favour of customers by hiding low quality. Therefore, the most used food colorants in Canada, China, European Union, Mexico and United States of America were presented. The chemical name, chemical structure, common uses, acceptable daily intake (ADI), and toxicity literature of six most used artificial food colors were reviewed.

Effects of regular control of food colours content in meat products in Serbia

Research of added food colours presence in meat products was carried out for a period of almost six years, as a continuance of previous study on market in Serbia. Improved method of high performance liquid chromatography was applied for identification and quantification od added colours in meat products. The colours were determined in variety of meat products, smoked meat and bacon, fermented sausages and heat-treated dry sausages, boiled sausages, cooked sausages, canned meat and meat meals, meat semiproducts and mechanically separated meat and, as a separated category, sea fish pastes, both from domestic market and from import. Over the 1400 products were analysed. The research results showed great improvement both in content of colours and labelling of products of meat products in Serbia.

Substitution of milk allergen ingredient by blood plasma powder in custard with different sweeteners

Animal blood is a by-product, which can be utilized in a value-adding way instead of being wasted. Allergen substitution is a good possibility especially for a substance that is difficult to substitute, such as milk. Blood plasma is a fluid with high protein content without blood (iron) taste and colour, so it is similar to milk in several ways. While investigating the substitution of milk, it is advisable to investigate the substitution of sugar as well because a lot of consumers who exclude milk from their diet find the glycaemic index and energy content of foods important. The investigated model food is a simple, homogeneous matrix: vanilla custard with milk and with and without sugar and vanilla custard with blood plasma and with and without sugar. Colour, pH and rheological attributes of custard sample groups were measured. According to the results the used protein source as well as sweetener significantly determine the colour, pH and texture of the final product. However, colour and pH are easy to change with other components (food colours, acidity regulators) and the effect of milk and sugar substitution on rheological attributes might not be possible to detect without instrumental analysis.

Knowledge and Awareness of Artificial Food Colours and its Impact on Nutrition and Health Among Adolescent Population

Food serves as the primary factor for human survival. Various types of foods are consumed by different people of various localities. For children and adolescents, the food is consumed predominantly by its colour. Unfortunately, the natural colours of food are not maintained as such and are altered by using several non-permissible artificial food colour additives. A large body of laboratory research has demonstrated that changing the intensity/saturation of the colour of food and beverage items can exert a sometimes dramatic impact on the expectations, and hence on the subsequent experiences, of consumers (or participants in the lab). However, should the colour not match the taste, then the result may well be a negatively valenced disconfirmation of expectation. The study was designed to find the impact of colour of food in nutrition consumption among 100 participants. In our study, 58% male and 42% female participated, out of them 60% are undergraduates, 29% are graduates, 8% are postgraduates and 3% are uneducated. 75% of the population says colour of food affects nutritional consumption. 63% answered nutritional value of food is dependent upon its colour. The study found that the colour of food can cause an impact on nutritional consumption of health among the adolescent population. As prevention is better than cure, it is essential to implement certain rules or law to evaluate the frequency of using toxic non permitted colour as well as permitted colours and also to prevent ill effects on using both synthetic colour (non-permitted colours) and permitted colour above permissible law to improve health among the population.

Synthesis of Natural Food Colour from Carotenoid using Flower Petals

Colour is an important characteristic of food. Since the colours are obtained from synthetic origin, it shows some adverse effect to humans. So it is an alternative way to use natural food colour obtained in the form a carotenoid pigments along with health benefits, In this current study, natural food colours are obtained by means of a carotenoid pigments by using flower petals of Hibiscus rosa- sinesis, senna auriculata, Magnolia champaca and Ixora coccinea by using the solvent extraction method. During the extraction upper phase containing carotenoid pigments are separated. The extracted pigments are then subjected to confirmatory assessment of carotenoid pigments by UV spectrophotometer. Phytochemical analysis was done to each extract to see the bio active compound present in it. Extracted sample was studied for antioxidant activity, antibacterial activity for each extract was performed against Escherichia coli. To identify the mixture of compounds, it was subjected to Thin Layer Chromatography, then analysed and compared with the standard carotenoid. To identify molecular components and structure of the each extract and functional group present in it, FTIR was done. Each sample of extraction was checked for the physical parameters like stability and pH. The obtained natural carotenoid colour pigments were incorporated in food along phytochemical properties too.