For 100 years, the food industry has resolved consumers’ competing demands for processed, shelf-stable foods with fresh-looking colors by relying on synthetic colorants. On an ingredient label, these dyes appear as Blue 1, Red 40, Yellow 5, and others. Dye Intermediates
However, consumers have become increasingly concerned about the potential negative health effects of such synthetics. For example, the synthetic dye Red 2 was identified as a carcinogen by the FDA in the 1970s and taken off the market—the ensuing consumer fear of red dyes in general led candy companies to eliminate red from their products for more than a decade. The FDA determined that another dye, Red 3, contributed to skin cancer, and they banned it in products used on the skin, though it remains legal for use in foods.
The food industry’s use of natural pigments has been hampered by these ingredients’ degradation during many common food processing techniques: Beet root extract, for example, is already used extensively in beverages, dairy, and fruit products, but its color degrades when exposed to heat, light, or changes in pH.
The new technique developed by Cornell food scientists uses the state-of-the-art Hiperbaric high-pressure processing unit at Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva. Normally the unit—which subjects foods to pressure up to 87,000 pounds per square inch—is used in place of heated processing to kill bacteria in fresh foods. But Abbaspourrad, Padilla-Zakour and their colleagues discovered that it can also be used to assimilate and stabilize colorant.
“When you take beet juice, formulate it with hydrocolloids and apply high pressure, it actually affects the way these complexes are formed and creates a stable color, which you can’t obtain by common techniques,” Abbaspourrad said.
In contrast to some synthetic dyes, beet juice is decidedly healthy. It has been found to have anti-cancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective properties.
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