Technological Applications of Natural Colorants in Food Systems: A Review

Natural colorants have emerged as an alternative to their synthetic counterparts due to an existing health concern of these later. Moreover, natural-food colorants are a renewable option providing health benefits and interesting technological and sensory attributes to the food systems containing them. Several sources of natural colorants have been explored aiming to deliver the required wide color range demanded by consumers. This review aimed to compare and discuss the technological applications of the main natural-food colorants into food system in the last six years, giving additional information about their extraction process. Although natural colorants are promising choices to replace synthetic ones, optimization of processing conditions, research on new sources, and new formulations to ensure stability are required to equate their properties to their synthetic counterparts.

Automated summary

Natural colorants have emerged as a renewable and healthy alternative to synthetic counterparts, providing technological and sensory attributes to food systems. Exploration of various sources aims to meet the demand for a wide color range. While promising, further research on new sources, optimization of processing conditions, and formulation development are needed to match the stability of synthetic colorants.