Use of food pigment

Food color is an important factor of food sensory quality. People often use a kind of food additive food pigment in the production of food. There are two kinds of edible pigments: natural and synthetic. Before the British invented the first synthetic food pigment aniline violet in 1850, people used natural pigment to color. As early as the 10th century A.D., the ancients began to use plant-based natural pigments to color food. The first people who used the pigment were the Alix people of Great Britain. At that time, they made rose purple candy with Rubia plant pigment. After that, the tolteks and amanteks in America successively extracted carmine from the female cochineal for food coloring. Since ancient times, China has the habit of making wine with red yeast rice, soy sauce meat and making red sausage. The glutinous rice was dyed with yellow rice flowers in Southwest China and black rice leaves in Jiangnan. Food coloring and food additives for improving food color. There are natural and synthetic. Natural pigment is extracted from plant tissue directly, which is harmless to human body, such as Monascus, green pigment, curcumin, carotene, amaranth and sugar. Synthetic food pigment is made from aniline dye separated from coal tar, so it is also called coal tar pigment or aniline pigment, such as synthetic amaranth, carmine and lemon yellow. These synthetic pigments are easy to induce poisoning, diarrhea and even cancer, which are harmful to human body, so they can not be used or used as much as possible.