Why use color? Why use artificial food coloring in candies?

coloring of candies,artificial food colour

Why use color?

Clor variation in foods throughout the seasons & effects of food processing & storage often require that manufacturers add color to certain foods to meet consumer expectations.

The primary reasons for adding colors to foods include:

 To offset color loss due to exposure to light, air, extremes of temperature, moisture & storage conditions.

 To correct natural variations in color as offcolored foods are often incorrectly associated with inferior quality,

 To enhance colors that occurs naturally but at levels weaker than those usually associated with a given food,

 To give color to food lost during processing,

 To provide a colorful identity to foods that would otherwise be virtually colorless (Red colors provide a pleasant identity to strawberry ice cream while lime sherbet is known by its bright green color)

 To provide a colorful appearance to certain “fun foods” (any candies & holiday treats are colored to create a festive appearance)

 To protect flavors & vitamins that may be affected by sunlight during storage

 To provide an appealing variety of wholesome & nutritious foods that meet consumers’ demands

 Besides colouring food, several natural dyes posses bioactive properties & have been used as therapeutic agents & as diagnostic tools.

 Some of the dyes have been reported for following curative effects; antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral & anti-inflammatory,

 Turmeric has been reported as a digestive aid & treatment of carminative & stomach disorder. It has also been found as potential biomolecule for the treatment of cancer.

 Presently, there has been much interest in carotenoids, especially beta-carotene (carrots, mango, papaya etc.) which besides natural orange pigment is converted in body to vitamin A & has antioxidant powers.

 Beta-carotene is believed to have a beneficial effect in reducing the risk of some cancers & perhaps heart disease

 Increasingly, food additive colours are based on anthocyanins derived from sources such as red grapes or beet, but first additive colours were the synthetic dyes.

Why use artificial food coloring?

 These are more stable,

 Provide better color uniformity,

 Blend together easily to provide a wide range of hues,

 Generally do not impart undesirable flavors to foods,

 They enhance natural colors,

 Used for offsetting color losses due to light, air, temperature extremes, moisture & storage conditions, sometimes through baking or cooking colors in foods may be lost.

 To mask natural variations in color (Even orange peels are sometimes colored so oranges appear more uniform & ripe).

 Helps to provide identity to foods.

 Artificial colors may also protect flavors & vitamins from damage due to light.

 Whatever your purpose, artificial colors are a great economical way to make your creation even more beautiful.

Use of Color Additives Beverages

 The color for beverages is often contained in the flavor concentrate or compound.

 Color solubility is often a problem since water in many instances must be kept to a minimum to hold oils in the solution.

 In such instances, it is helpful to employ propylene glycol or glycerine as the flavor solvent instead of alcohol

Bakery products

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 Colors are employed in dough products, cookies, sandwich fillings, icings and coatings.

 Because of high moisture content of dough’s and batters, little problem of color addition exists.

 Obtaining the depth of color can often be a problem.

 This is particularly true in dark chocolate pieces and use of certified color alone results in excessive color used.

 In such products, combinations of certified colors with uncertified color additives have been proved successfully.

 Caramel or carbon black is added with various combinations of certified colors.

Dairy products

 Nearly all ice creams and sherbets contain artificial color.

 Chocolate ice cream is often the exception,

 Because of small amounts of color used and because of convenience, liquid colors are often used.

 Cheese is a product in which certified colors are not sufficiently stable, while β-carotene are the desired colorants.

 Likewise margarine and butter are colored chiefly with β-carotene and oil soluble Annatto

Candy

 It is difficult to imagine many candies, particularly hard candies without color,

 Hard candy represents a system low (1–2%) in moisture and aqueous color solutions are added with reluctance.

 Paste colors and other non-aqueous plastic materials are used.

 Color should be added at the lowest temperature that will permit adequate distribution.

Dry mix products

 Colors for dry mixes should impart maximum color to dry product and, if a blend, dissolve without “Flashing”; i.e. without showing individual component colors.

 To obtain maximum color in a dry mix, dissolvedcolor can be added in solution,

 This operation, however, necessitates some sort of moisture removing operation and often dry mixes can not tolerate moisture additions.

 A number of primary colors are available in plating grade form that show superior coloring power when distributed throughout a dry mix

 The difficulty of “color flashing” can be eliminated by use of wet-dry blends

 These are prepared by dissolving the colors to form a solution and drying the solution

Toxicological Considerations

 Concern for safety is a universal and common among all food colorants,  Colorants considered safe in one country, however, may not be considered safe in other parts of the world.

 The toxicity of a colorant is tested under conditions similar to those under which it will be used.

• Since food colors be safe when ingested, animal feeding studies play a key role in their evaluation.

 The regulatory status of colorants used in countries throughout the world is in a constant state of flux.

 The toxicological evidence for synthetic colors is considerably greater than that for “Natural” colors.

 The chemical complexity and difficulty in defining specifications for them make the toxicological evaluation of “Natural” colorants virtually impossible.

Adverse effects of colours

• The use of non-permitted colours & excess of permitted colours generally cause adverse effects on human health • Some of the common effects of prolonged use of synthetic colours cause hyper acidity, thyroid tumours, asthma, nasal congestion, allergies, abdominal pain, nausea, eczema, liver & kidney damage & cancer

Stability of the colors Action of light

 The foodstuff should be protected from direct exposure to light as the colors are sensitive to light.

 The effect of light on food color is very destructive.

 Ultraviolet light is more destructive to food colors ascompared to sunlight.

 The most stable artificial colors are Tartrazine, Carmoisine etc.

 The least stable colors are Erythrosine and Indigo Carmine

Effect of food processing temperature

 Stability of each color is indicated at an average process temperature of 100 oC and at a high processing temperature of 200 oC

 Full range of shades are available with excellent heat stability

 At high temperature, carbonization may occur that causes color loss or change

 Colors should be added at the lowest possible temperatures & as late as possible in the process, usually at the same time as the flavour, when little further heating will take place

 The most stable artificial colors are Tartrazine, sunset yellow, green S, brilliant blue FCF etc.

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