NATURAL FOOD COLORANTS

The food colorants can be defined as those that impart color to the food that may be natural or synthetic and are not consumed as foods (FSSAI, 2011). Food colorants are of two types: (i) Natural food colorant (ii) Synthetic food colorant. The food colorant market is growing at 4.6% yearly and is estimated to get a 2.3 billion dollar world market. Food is produced and processed in food industries that may be situated far from the consumer market, and foods are needed to be transported to the consumer. In this case, the food may lose its appearance and some properties. To prevent this from happening, food additives are added. The following are the point wise reasons to use the food colorants [5]:

To prevent the loss of original food appeal

To enhance the color in food and the consumer will correlate this intensified color with food quality.

To preserve vitamins vulnerable to flavor and light.

To maintain the image or character recognized by the food.

Natural colorants: Natural dye present in foods, plants, cosmetics, fruit, seeds, algae, or insect extracted by any extraction method. For example, anthocyanins, betacyanins, carotenes, betaxanthins, flavones, and chlorophylls.

Carotenoid

which is exceptionally high in fruits and vegetables, is an essential food component of the human diet. It is composed of a class of natural fat-soluble pigments comprised of eight molecules of five carbon isoprenoids. It is responsible for red, yellow, and orange coloration. Carotenoids are divided into two groups which are carotenes (includes lycopene, α-carotene, and β-carotene) and xanthophylls (lutein, zeaxanthin, and astaxanthin) [9].

Sources of carotenoids

Apart from recommended sources of

Anthocyanins

The anthocyanins are red, purple, or blue pigments found in fruits, flowers, plants, etc. The molecular structure of anthocyanins is based on glucoside with sugar moieties. There are mainly six derived anthocyanins which are cyaniding (50%), pelargonidin (12%), peonidin (12%), delphinidin (12%), petunidin (7%), and malvidin (7%). These anthocyanins are among the 600 types of molecules which can be found naturally.

Betanins

With nitrogen in their basic structure, betanins are water-soluble nature pigment. Betanins are divided into two structural groups: betacyanins (responsible for red-violet color) and betaxanthins(responsible for yellow-orange color) [114].

Sources of betanins

The different investigator found novel sources from which betanins can be extracted like, Gomphrena globosa L. flower, yellow pitaya, dragon fruit peel, red beetroot, beet leaves, Alternanthera sesillis, beetroot pomace.