我国植物食用色素资源开发利用评价

古代人们使用的着色剂都是天然产品,除少数矿物颜料外,主要是植物源色素。我国古代就有以红曲米作为着色剂利用的习惯;在高等植物方面,生产蓝色、黄色、绿色的颜料的高等植物种类不少,大多沿用至今。自19世纪中叶以后,人工合成色素以着色牢固、鲜艳、成本低廉等特点,迅速占领了印染、食品等许多行业,但20世纪60年代以后,许多研究表明,一般合成色素都有程度不等的毒性,特别是化学结构含偶氮型的色素有可能在人体内成为致癌物。同时,在色素合成的过程中,还有可能污染有重金属及其他有害物质。因此,合成色素越来越使人们感到不安全。从20世纪50年代的100多种人工合成色素用于食品着色,到20世纪末,已有60~70余种被禁用了,而植物食用色素在食品行业中成为主要着色剂。近年来又涌现出多种有价值的高等植物源色素,我们选择其主要一些植物种类做些介绍,供有关方面参考。

Development and Utilization of Edible Plant Pigments in China

People in ancient times used natural colorants. They come mainly from plant sources, except for a few from minerals. For example, red kojic rice was utilized as colorant in ancient China. As for higher plants, up to now, not a few of them are used to produce blue, yellow and green pigments. Bright -colored, color fast and cheep, artificially synthesized pigments once were applied in many industries such as printing ＆ dyeing and foods after the mid -nineteenth century. After 1960s, many research results showed synthesized pigments were toxic to some extent, and especially, azo type pigments were cancerogen to human body. Besides, they were possibly mixed with heavy metals and some other harmful substances. Therefore, more and more people realize the unsafety of synthesized pigments. To the end of 20th century, 60 -70 kinds of synthesized pigments had been prohibited, and edible plant pigments become dominant in food industry. In recent years, some new valuble pigments of higher plant source have been discovered. In this paper, the main pigment plants were introduced to provide a reference for their further development.