Food coloring
What are color-enriched food ingredients?
Color-enriched food ingredients refer to liquid or solid ingredients that are made from one or more naturally colored fruits, vegetables, potatoes, and other plants and/or algae as raw materials, processed through certain physical processes, with or without other auxiliary materials, and used to provide color to food.
Basic requirements for color-enriched food ingredients
As an indispensable part of the current food industry, color-enriched food ingredients should meet the following basic requirements:
(1) Naturally colored plants and/or algae should be used as raw materials, and the basic coloring components, taste, flavor and other characteristics and nutritional functions of the raw materials should be maintained to the maximum extent.
(2) The production process should select one or more of the following physical methods: crushing, grinding, water immersion, pressing, filtering, concentration, drying, etc. Processing methods or processes for separating coloring components should not be used; organic solvents should not be used to extract coloring components.
(3) Auxiliary materials and food additives such as water, sugar, edible vegetable oil, maltodextrin, starch or modified starch may be used. The use of additives should comply with GB2760, and food additives with coloring functions should not be used.
Difference from food additives with pigments
In the food industry, food pigments can be roughly divided into three categories: artificial synthetic pigments, natural pigments and color-enriched food ingredients. Among them, artificial synthetic pigments refer to artificial synthetic additives for food coloring, such as lemon yellow (E101); natural pigments refer to pigment additives from natural sources and added to food, and chemical solvents may be used in the extraction process, such as turmeric (E100).
Unlike traditional colorants, color-enriched food ingredients are not food additives, but food ingredients. During use, they can not only give products color, but also meet consumers’ pursuit of natural raw materials and the trend of clean labels in the market.
