A Guide to Food Colours
In very simple language food colours refers to substances or things which can be used to give colour to different kinds of food products. There is a need for food colours as they help to give food an attractive appearance, colors help to differentiate between various food products and often used to restore the colour that gets lost during processing of some food items.
A very common question that comes to mind is how these food colours are obtained. In the next section we will closely look at it.
Sources of Food Colours
Before we look into sources of food colours we need to be aware that there are two types of food colours:
- Natural Food Colours and
- Synthetic Food Colours
Natural Food Colours: The sources of natural food colors are plants, roots, flowers and fruits among others.
Synthetic Food Colours: These colours are obtained by synthesizing petrochemical products such as toluene, naphthalene, benzene and xylene.
About Natural Food Colors
There are only very few natural colours which can be used for giving colour to food items, these are annatto, curcumin, carmine, paprika, caramel, beetroot, chlorophyll, carotene and anthocyanin.
But we would like to tell here that there are some limitations because of which these natural food colors are not used frequently. These limitations are:
- Limited stability
- Limited availability
- Limited range of colours
- Limitation in freely mixing with different colors
- Limited shelf life
About Synthetic Food Colors
Before we get into explaining more about synthetic food colors it is worth mentioning that all synthetic colours cannot be used as food colours and the permitted range of colors varies from one nation to another.
The permitted synthetic food colors are tartrazine, amaranth, allura red, sunset yellow, ponceau 4R, erythrosine, carmoisine, brown HT, black PN, indigo carmine, fast green FCF, red 2G, green S, brilliant blue FCF, patent blue V and quinoline yellow.
Conclusion
Thus we can see that there are different options available when you want to use food colors and choice of food colours largely depends on the kind of food that is to be coloured and the kind of colours you are seeking.
As an expert author Peter Hogg provides valuable information about food colours and how trends are changing in the food colours industry.
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