Colours for food use

Food colours are additives that, when added to foods, impart color to them.[1][3]
Foods often undergo color changes due to exposure to air, light, humidity or temperature. The addition of colours serves to:

  • enhance the naturally occurring colours;
  • add colour to an otherwise colorless food;
  • change the colour of a product.[3]

Therefore, colorants improve the appearance of foods and, for commercial purposes, encourage consumers to buy them.
Along with sweeteners and stabilizers, they are the most used food additives in private households.

Contents

Purpose of food coloring

Colours are added to many foods, such as cheeses, beverages, snacks, sweets, jams, or fats like margarine and butter.
From a commercial point of view, they help make products more attractive, appetizing or easily identifiable to consumers. Colour even seems to be, among the sensory signals, the most important.[7]
Furthermore, consumer choices are often influenced by their perception of what the “natural” colour of the product should be. An example is candied cherries, whose natural colour is beige, but which are colored red, using erythrosine (E127) or cochineal red A (E124), because that is the colour consumers consider as natural for that product.
Colours are also used in the medical field, where they help make drugs easily identifiable at sight.

Natural and artificial colours

Like other food additives, colours can be natural or artificial.
Natural food colours include plant-derived and animal-derived molecules.
Examples of plant-derived colours are lycopene (E160d), lutein (E161b) and beta-carotene (E160a(ii)), which are carotenoids. Some anthocyanins (E163), the only colored flavonoids, and chlorophylls are also plant-derived colours.[5]
Examples of food coloursAn example of animal-derived colour is carminic acid (E120), or more precisely, its aluminum salt. Carminic acid is extracted from cochineal (Dactylopius coccus), which is believed to use it as a visual deterrent secreted when attacked by a predator.[2][4]
Finally, an example of an artificial colour is Allura red AC (E129), initially used as a substitute for amaranth (E123).[6]

Examples of colours

Below is a review of some colours included in the list of food additives approved in the European Community according to Regulation 1129/2011 of the European Commission, published on November 11, 2011. This list is an amendment of Annex II to Regulation (EC) No. 1333/2008 of the European Parliament, and was in turn amended in 2013.[1]

Yellow and orange
E100  Curcumin
E101  (i) Riboflavin, (ii) Riboflavin-5′-phosphate (vitamin B2)
E102 Tartrazine (= FD&C Yellow no. 5)
E104 Quinoline yellow
E110 Sunset Yellow FCF; Orange Yellow S (= FD&C Yellow no. 6)
Red
E120 Cochineal; Carminic acid; Carmines
E122 Azorubine; Carmoisine
E123 Amaranth
E124 Ponceau 4R; Cochineal Red A
E127 Erythrosine (= FD&C Red no. 3)
E129 Allura Red AC (= FD&C Red no. 40)
Blue
E131 Patent Blue V
E132  lndigotine; Indigo Carmine (= FD&C Blue no. 2)
E133 Brilliant Blue FCF (= FD&C Blue no. 1)
Green
E140 Chlorophylls and chlorophyllins: (i) Chlorophylls, (ii) Chlorophyllins (the natural green colour of leaves)
E141  Copper complexes of chlorophyll and chlorophyllins
E142 Green S
Brown and black
E150a Plain caramel
E150b Caustic sulphite caramel
E150c Ammonia caramel
E150d Sulphite ammonia caramel
E151 Brilliant Black BN; Black PN
E153 Vegetable carbon
E155 Brown HT
Carotenoids
E160a Carotenes: (i) Mixed carotenes, (ii) Beta-carotene
E160b Annatto; Bixin; Norbixin
E160c Paprika extract; Capsanthin; Capsorubin
E160d Lycopene
E160e trans-beta-apo-8′-carotenal (C30)
E160f Ethyl ester of beta-apo-8′-carotenoic acid (C30)
Other plant-derived colours
E161b Lutein
E161c Beta-cryptoxanthin
E161g Canthaxanthin
E162 Beetroot Red; Betanin
E163 Anthocyanins
Other compounds used as colours
E170 Calcium carbonate
E171 Titanium dioxide
E172 Iron oxides and hydroxides
E173 Aluminium
E174 Silver
E175 Gold
E180 Litholrubine BK
FD&C USA; abbreviation for synthetic colours permitted for use in food, drugs and cosmetics.

References

  1. ^ a b Commission Regulation (EU) No 1129/2011 of 11 November 2011 amending Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council by establishing a Union list of food additives. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2011/1129/2013-11-21
  2. ^ Deveoglu O. A review on cochineal (Dactylopius Coccus Costa) dye. Res J Recent Sci 2020;9(3):37-43
  3. ^ a b EFSA: Food colours. Last reviewed date: 18 January 2024. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/food-colours
  4. ^  Eisner T., Nowicki S., Goetz M., Meinwald J. Red cochineal dye (carminic acid): its role in nature. Science 1980;208(4447):1039-42. doi:10.1126/science.208.4447.1039
  5. ^ Gebhardt B., Sperl R., Carle R., Müller-Maatsch J. Assessing the sustainability of natural and artificial food colorants. J Clean Prod 2020;260;120884. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120884
  6. ^  “Human Metabolome Database: Showing metabocard for Allura red AC (HMDB0032884)”. Human Metabolome Database. 11 September 2012. Retrieved 22 November 2022.
  7. ^  Piqueras-Fiszman B. and Spence C. Sensory expectations based on product-extrinsic food cues: an interdisciplinary review of the empirical evidence and theoretical accounts. Food Qual 2015;40(Part A):165-179. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2014.09.013