Why Are Color Additives Used In Foods?
Color is an important property of foods that adds to our enjoyment of eating. Nature teaches is early to expect certain colors in certain foods, and our future acceptance of foods is highly dependent on meeting these expectations. Color variation in foods throughout the seasons and the effects of food processing and storage often require that manufacturers add color to certain foods to meet consumer expectations. The primary reasons of adding colors to foods include: • To offset color loss due to exposure to light, air, extremes of temperature, moisture and storage conditions. • To correct natural variations in color. Off-colored foods are often incorrectly associated with inferior quality. For example, some tree-ripened oranges are often sprayed with Citrus Red No.2 to correct the natural orangy-brown or mottled green color of their peels (Masking inferior quality, however, is an unacceptable use of colors.) • To enhance colors that occur naturally but at levels weaker than those usua
