Best & Easier Ways to Make Natural Food Colors- How they are Made?

Best & Easier Ways to Make Natural Food Colors- How they are Made?

There are many different ways to develop natural food colors and most of them are effective and provide top-quality food colors. The best method to make natural food colors out of all of them are given below:

The sources to make the natural food colors can be found everywhere around us such as raspberries, strawberries, sweet potato, tomato, beets, cocoa, coffee, activated charcoal, and many more. Our first step is to choose the right source to make food coloring. The food colors completely depend on what source we choose. While making the food colors, keep your expectations reasonable because natural colors are not as vibrant as commercialized food colors. So just keep in mind that your red will not be pure red but it will give a nice and unique tint.

Give Preference to Natural Food Colors

The second main thing to consider is the flavor of the food colors. The natural food colors are much better than a commercialized product in the sense that they give natural taste while the artificial taste can be felt from the commercialized product. The flavors are made from the natural ingredients of food, and when added while icing the product, it gives an everlasting taste. This method of adding flavor might not be effective for many ingredients that need cooking such as cocoa, matcha, and coffee but it is useful for food products like squid ink, spinach, and many more and can give a very fresh and natural taste.

Powder and Liquid are the two forms of food colors, and both are used worldwide. The easier way to make natural food colors are through powder. The powder form can provide a more concentrated color as they easily mix up with water. The powder forms of vegetables and dried fruits are easily available in the market, but they can also be made easily by first freezing and then pulverizing the dried food items. Some can directly be added to the frosting because they naturally exist in powder forms like cocoa, spices, tea, and coffee, etc.

Getting Pure and Concentrated Liquid Form

The other method is through a liquid form. Getting a pure and concentrated food color from a liquid is quite a challenging task. The solid particles that are usually left in it. A juicer or a blender can be used to make a liquid form of the food products. The particles can be strained out, which is time-consuming. After finishing, the liquid of the liquid base is reduced to make sure the more concentrated food colors are obtained. The normal recommendation is to reduce the water until ¼ cups are left. This is the pure and natural food color ready to put to freeze.

Keeping an eye on the temperature is a main and crucial part of making food colors. These natural food colorants perform great while shading the frozen products. Many baked goods can also be shaded and flavored with these food colors. But heat can cause the colors of many products to go duller and darker. It is also a recommendation to cool them properly before actually using them for any food recipe.

After providing the proper temperature to them, the natural food colors are successfully made. Now the final step is to add them in frosting or icing. The expert way to add the color is to add it gradually until you achieve the desired color. Just make sure to add more powder color than liquid color. Powder color is more effective in flavor and color.

Can you buy natural food coloring?

Can you buy natural food coloring?

You can buy natural food coloring but it is much expensive. Colors and flavors play an important role in the success and marketing of a finished product after its synthesis. If the color and flavor are according to the customer’s choice, then it is of great worth. Otherwise, it is of no use. Because, if the smell or color of the finished product is not good. It will not be sold out.

Usage of Benefits

The usage of color additives in food has a lot of benefits. It makes the vision of the food more attractive and mesmerizing. Furthermore, the color loss is also prohibited. Hence the addition of colors in foods also gives an attractive hue to food. Now as far as the flavors are concerned, they not only add taste to the foods but also have many functional roles as well. These functional roles include masking off notes and bitterness from nutritional ingredients such as proteins and fibers. It is quite clear that there is a difference between artificial and natural color dyes of food. Artificial dyes are often found in Easter eggs and pastel cakes. While the natural stuff of food dyes is present in plants and it is free from glycerin and corn syrup. As far as the cost is concerned, it is very costly.

Natural dyes are very beneficial for those who are allergic to synthetic dyes. Now we will discuss the hacks for creating your own food dye if you are not comfortable with the artificial dyes available at stores. For starters, it is suggested simply to use turmeric as yellow food coloring—no treatment needed. If you want to make the pink or red color, you can use beet juice or dry strawberries and then crush them into a fine powder. It will add a pink tone to your food.

Natural Food Color

 There are also many alternatives for green and orange dyes. If you want an orange color, then use saffron and if you want green color then use matcha for this. In this way, you can have natural dye for your food. We can buy natural food coloring from the market. As far as the price is concerned, natural colors are costlier than their synthetic counterparts and present certain stability challenges from heat, light, and oxygen, brands are reformulating with great success. As far as Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese is concerned, the brand was able to eliminate its artificial colors and flavors without consumers really noticing a difference. Kraft announced in April 2015 that it planned to remove all artificial flavors, preservatives, and dyes from its Blue Box, and did exactly that in December of that year. In March 2016 which is just three months later, the brand reported the selling of more than 50 million boxes of its mac and cheese, revamped with natural coloring from paprika, annatto in the place of yellows 5 and 6. It was all about buying a food color.

What to know more in detail about natural food sources?

What to know more in detail about natural food sources?

A lot of sources such as vegetables, fruits, plants, minerals, and other natural sources are the best in order to extract natural food colors but these are edible. They add color to food.

Natural Food Sources for Obtaining Natural Colors

Foods and other edible natural food sources are the best to get natural food colors. These are also perfect to obtain by physical or chemical extraction of the pigments from relative foods. As far as their forms are concerned, they are present in many forms like liquids, powders or gels and pastes. So, it is perfect to use at commercial and domestic stages for cooking purposes. However, food color is actually a dye or we can say that it is an additive or pigment that imparts color to the food or drink.

Usage of Food Colors in Non-food Applicants

There are different non-food applicants. And these are cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Certain colors get aligned with certain flavors. Sometimes, it is aimed to stimulate a color that can be perceived by the consumer as a natural color. Color additives are also used for a number of reasons. Find the reasons below

  • To make the food attractive, alluring, mesmerizing, and appetizing
  • Correct natural variations in color
  • Enhance colors that occur naturally
  • Provide color to colorless and "fun" foods
  • Allow consumers to identify products on sight, like candy flavors or medicine dosages

Carotenoids, chlorophyllin consists of four main classes of plant pigments which grow to color the food products. Other pigments that give colors or specialized derivatives of these core groups include:

  • Annatto, a reddish-orange dye made from the seed of the achiote 
  • Caramel coloring, made from caramelized sugar
  • Carmine, a red dye derived from the cochineal insect
  • Elderberry juice (E163)
  • Lycopene (E160d)
  • Paprika (E160c)
  • Turmeric /Curcumin (E100)

As we know that blue colors are rare. One of the blue dyes gets prepared from spirulina. According to some recent research, associating anthocyanins explored in combination with other phenolics and aluminum ions to create blue colors.

Natural Food- Safer to Eat

As far as some of the most common natural food colorings are concerned, they contain carotenoids, chlorophyll, anthocyanin, and turmeric. As far as the green and blue foods are concerned, they now have matcha, cyanobacteria, or spirulina for color.

For the purpose of making sure the reproducibility, the components of these substances which are coloring. These are providing in highly purified form. For stability and convenience, they can formulate in suitable carrier materials (solids and liquids). Hexane, acetone, and other solvents break down cell walls in the fruit and vegetables and allow for maximum extraction of the coloring. We also know the solvents as carry-over ingredients.