Scientists Found a New Natural Blue Food Coloring from an Unlikely Source
From candies and cakes to even the pills we take, natural food coloring is big business. The overall market could be worth up to $3.2 billion by 2027, which is a whole lot of money for a bunch of colors derived from fruits and vegetables. And the biggest development that has people buzzing is a new type of blue that just might make it easier to get that particular pigment from a natural source.
Recently, a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis have discovered a new way to source a brilliant new shade of cyan blue from a natural source. And rather ironically, that natural source is red cabbage.
Believe it or not, there’s a tiny bit of blue pigment (aka blue anthocyanins) in a red cabbage. But in this case, the team at UC Davis found a way to use enzymes that can convert the many non-blue anthocyanins in red enzymes to that blue color, naturally. With more newly-blue anthocyanins that can be extracted, it’s suddenly a much more commercially viable proposition to use red cabbage as a source of natural blue food coloring.
While this may not seem like a big deal to those of us who take the color of our food and where it comes from for granted, it’s potentially consequential news for the industry. You see, there aren’t really many natural sources of cyan like this, leading to a widespread reliance on the artificial FD&C Blue No. 1 dye. While the FDA considers this particular artificial dye safe, scientific studies have tried to determine if there’s a link between ADHD and Blue No. 1. So, suffice to say, a naturally-derived replacement could be useful.
According to Forbes, two of the researchers who made the discovery have launched a startup to “explore commercial applications for this new source of cyan.” They also got some help from the Mars Advanced Research Institute and Mars Wrigley Science and Technology, so it sounds like some pretty big food brands have a vested interest in their efforts.
So if you’d rather sidestep Blue No.1 in the future, this breakthrough is big news. Thanks for the blue, red cabbage.
5 Facts about Blue Food Coloring
This is part of our ongoing series helping consumers better understand food additives. We translate the food science, explain the food natures, and give you an honest advice, so you can choose the right foods for your family!
What is Blue Food Coloring
Blue No. 1 (E133) is called “brilliant blue” and, as is typical of modern dyes, was originally derived from coal tar, although most manufacturers now make it from an oil base. FD&C Blue No. 2 is also called indigo blue or indigotine. It is a synthetic version of indigo, a dye naturally produced from plants. Indigotine, on the other hand, is a petroleum product, with the chemical formula C16H10N2O2. It is used in baked goods, cereals, ice cream, snacks, candies and cherries. You can find it on the label of M&M candies.
Certified colours are synthetically produced (or human made) and used widely because they impart an intense, uniform color, are less expensive, and blend more easily to create a variety of hues. Only 9 are permitted in the U.S. FD&C Blue No. 1 and FD&C Blue No. 2 are among the 9 permitted synthetic food colors.
Why Blue Food Coloring is Used in Food Processing?
Manufacturers use colour additives to cover up an absence of natural colour (e.g. in margarine), offset colour loss due to light/air/temperature exposure, and give the product “added value.”
As a blue color, Brilliant Blue FCF is often found in ice cream, canned processed peas, packet soups, bottled food colorings, icings, ice pops, blue raspberry flavored products, dairy products, sweets and drinks, especially the liqueur blue curaçao. It is also used in soaps, shampoos, mouthwash and other hygiene and cosmetics applications. In soil science, Brilliant Blue is applied in tracing studies to visualize infiltration and water distribution in the soil.
Natural Source of Blue Dye
Indigo, which comes from the indigo plant (Indigofera), has been used for probably at least 4,000 years. There is a written recipe for dying wool with indigo on a Babylonian cuneiform tablet dated to the seventh century B.C. There is evidence that it was used in neolithic Europe and in pharaonic Egypt. It also comes from the woad plant (Isatis tinctoria), and was used by the Celts in Scotland to dye their faces.
If you speak to experts in the dying industry, they will tell you indigo is not colorfast: It washes out, fades rather rapidly—more rapidly than a designed synthetic dye. For the past 30 or 40 years faded jeans have been the uniform of students, and when I lecture I can be sure that at least half out of 100 undergraduates will be wearing indigo.
Indigo appears to be licensed for use as a food dye in the U.S., but most food dyes are synthetic and of broadly similar chemical constitution to those used as textile dyes.
5 Facts about Blue Food Coloring
1. You can find synthetic blue food coloring in M&M.
2. Blue dye may be able to treat spinal cord injuries in the future.
3. In the U.K. the same food products we have in the U.S. are coloured with different additives. For example, Fanta orange soda is dyed with Red 40 and Yellow 6 in the U.S.; Fanta orange soda is dyed with pumpkin and carrot extract in the U.K.
4. Red cabbage is the most common natural blue food coloring.
5. FD&C Blue No. 1 and FD&C Blue No. 2 are permitted to use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
