Food color:
The color additives in processed foods are usually present in smaller amounts than the flavor compounds added to food. Food coloring are added to foods to improve appearance, it serves many of the same decorative purposes as lipstick, eye shadow, mascara and it is often made from the same pigments. For example; Titanium dioxide is a common ingredient in women cosmetics, a versatile mineral used today to give many processed candies, frosting's, and icings their bright white color. It is also used in many white oil paints and house paints. At burger king, Wendy's, and McDonald's this coloring agents have been added to many of the soft drinks, salad dressings, cookies, condiments, chicken dishes, and sandwich buns. Recent studies have found that the color of a food can greatly affect how its taste is perceived. Brightly colored foods frequently seem to taste better than bland looking foods, even when the flavor compounds are identical. Foods that sometimes look off-color often seem to have off tastes. The color of fruit suggests if it is ripe, the color of meat suggest if it is rancid. Color additives may be used to offset color loss resulting from exposure to air, light, moisture, temperature extremes and storage conditions. They also may be used to correct natural variations in color, enhance naturally occurring colors and provide color to foods that naturally lack an appealing color. "Colored lights are sometimes used to modify the influence of visual cues in experiments; "In one experiment in the early 1970s people were served an oddly tinted meal of steak and french fries that appeared normal beneath colored lights. Everyone thought the meal tasted fine until the lighting was changed. once it become apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill".
The food and drug administration do not require companies to disclose the ingredients of their color or flavor additives so long as all the chemicals in them are considered by the agency to be GRAS ("generally recognized as safe"). This enables companies to maintain the secrecy of their formulas. For example, Cochineal extract (also known as carmine or carminic acid, Carmine, Crimson Lake, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470 or E120 ) is made from the dessicated bodies of female Dactylopius coccus Costa, a small insect harvested mainly in peru and the Canary Islands. The bug feeds on red cactus berries, color from the berries accumulates in the females and their unhatched larvae. These insects are collected, dried, and ground into a pigment. It takes about 70,000 of them to produce a pound of carmine. It is one of the mostly used color additives, hidden by the phrase "color added". It violates vegetarian food restrictions, and may cause allergic reaction in susceptible people. This color "carmine" gives food a red, pink or purple color. It is found in many yogurt, frozen fruit bars, candies, ice cream and fruit fillings, and Ocean Sparky pink-grapefruit juice drink.
Tips:
The color additives in processed foods are usually present in smaller amounts than the flavor compounds added to food. Food coloring are added to foods to improve appearance, it serves many of the same decorative purposes as lipstick, eye shadow, mascara and it is often made from the same pigments. For example; Titanium dioxide is a common ingredient in women cosmetics, a versatile mineral used today to give many processed candies, frosting's, and icings their bright white color. It is also used in many white oil paints and house paints. At burger king, Wendy's, and McDonald's this coloring agents have been added to many of the soft drinks, salad dressings, cookies, condiments, chicken dishes, and sandwich buns. Recent studies have found that the color of a food can greatly affect how its taste is perceived. Brightly colored foods frequently seem to taste better than bland looking foods, even when the flavor compounds are identical. Foods that sometimes look off-color often seem to have off tastes. The color of fruit suggests if it is ripe, the color of meat suggest if it is rancid. Color additives may be used to offset color loss resulting from exposure to air, light, moisture, temperature extremes and storage conditions. They also may be used to correct natural variations in color, enhance naturally occurring colors and provide color to foods that naturally lack an appealing color. "Colored lights are sometimes used to modify the influence of visual cues in experiments; "In one experiment in the early 1970s people were served an oddly tinted meal of steak and french fries that appeared normal beneath colored lights. Everyone thought the meal tasted fine until the lighting was changed. once it become apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill". The food and drug administration do not require companies to disclose the ingredients of their color or flavor additives so long as all the chemicals in them are considered by the agency to be GRAS ("generally recognized as safe"). This enables companies to maintain the secrecy of their formulas. For example, Cochineal extract (also known as carmine or carminic acid, Carmine, Crimson Lake, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470 or E120 ) is made from the dessicated bodies of female Dactylopius coccus Costa, a small insect harvested mainly in peru and the Canary Islands. The bug feeds on red cactus berries, color from the berries accumulates in the females and their unhatched larvae. These insects are collected, dried, and ground into a pigment. It takes about 70,000 of them to produce a pound of carmine. It is one of the mostly used color additives, hidden by the phrase "color added". It violates vegetarian food restrictions, and may cause allergic reaction in susceptible people. This color "carmine" gives food a red, pink or purple color. It is found in many yogurt, frozen fruit bars, candies, ice cream and fruit fillings, and Ocean Sparky pink-grapefruit juice drink.
Tips:
- The looks of food can be deceiving, check what you eat.
- Make better decisions at the grocery store by reading ingredient labels.
Avoid food products that contain artificial food coloring ingredients like Yellow #2, Red #5 or Blue Lake #40; Cheap, low-grade products in the grocery store tend to use these artificial colors. - Orange flavored drink has tricalcium phosphate, cellulose gum, and the color tartrazine which is already banned in some countries. Avoid Soda, soft drinks, sport drinks containing artificial color or flavor.
- Avoid ice cream that contain artificial flavor and colors, make your own ice cream at home if you can.
- Look for pure natural food coloring ingredients such as beets juice, annatto, turmeric.
- When product list "natural color or natural flavor" check to make sure is a plant-based or organic ingredient because the natural flavor and colors are sometimes masked as natural when they were really just natural chemical mix like with strawberry flavor. To give you a better picture think of raw petroleum that is natural but if the flavor is used it can be considered "natural flavor". Check label and learn what the product ingredient can do for your body.
Author: Onyinye A & Miller
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