Food coloring is any dye or pigment added to food to create a specific appearance. They are used to make orange shades brighter and uniform, brown hues to colas, and blue dye added to marshmallows to make them, strangely, whiter! Multi-colored foods are so astonishing to see. Food colorings – They’re in so many foods. We hardly think twice about how they become vivid and colorful in the first place.
Classification of Food Coloring
• According to source and structure:
Natural colorants are referred to as pigments extracted from plant and animal tissue mostly from plant pigments, animal pigments, microbial pigments, and inorganic pigments. Most of it comes from plant tissues, especially vegetables and fruits. The safety of natural edible colorants is high and some also contain nutritional values. The raw materials used in synthetic colorants are mostly chemical products whereas organic pigments are prepared through chemical syntheses.
• According to solubility
Food coloring is one of the addictive food ingredients. They are classified into fat-soluble pigments and water-soluble pigments. Fat-soluble pigments are chemical substances that contain carotenoids and chlorophyll. Water soluble pigments are terms for color-forming substances that can be dissolved in water.
The role of food coloring
1. Promotes absorption and digestion
Food colorings increase the secretion of digestive juice which is conducive to better absorption of food and digestion.
2. Increase appetite
Food coloring is used for coloring the meat to make it look more appealing and attractive thereby increasing appetite.
3. Improves sensory properties
During the natural food processing process, food will change color or fade away. Adding food color can change the color of food thereby improving the sensory properties.
The characteristics of food coloring
They consist of natural and artificial pigments
1. Natural pigments
The natural pigments imitate the color of natural objects with short shelf life, higher cost, and more natural hue. Coloring is affected by water quality, metal ions, oxidation, PH, light, and temperature.
2. Artificial pigments
These give our bright colors, stable performance, multiple tones, high fatness, strong coloring power, low cost, easy to use, and widely picked choice.
Conclusion
Food coloring is widely used in the food industry to make food items look appealing. If you are a food manufacturing company looking for the best quality food ingredients shop at Excesa.
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