• Dr.N.Sabitha
• Mrs.D.Thenmozhi

Abstract Food colouring, or colour additive, is any dye, pigment or substance that imparts colour when it is added to food or drink. They come in many forms consisting of liquids, powders, gels, and pastes. Food colouring is used both in commercial food production and in domestic cooking. Food colorings are a common additive used in the production of foods and beverages. A colour is deemed natural if its origin is vegetal, microbiological, animal or mineral. Whereas, artificial colors were created in labs (and sometimes accidentally) by chemists. Natural ingredients are derived from natural sources – for example, Beets, Carrot, Bougainvillea, Amaranth and some berries provide that is used as a food coloring. Many other additives, however, are not found in nature and, therefore, must be synthetically produced as artificial ingredients but it has known hazardous health effects. The three most widely used synthetic food colour - Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Red 40 - contain compounds, including benzidine and 4 - aminobiphenyl, that research has linked with cancer. The root vegetable beetroot has an array of colour pigments within, commonly known as betalains. Pigments extracted from red beetroot powder can provide various shades of reds, pinks, purples, oranges and yellows. Commonly these extracted pigments are utilised in dairy products, confectionary, fruit preparations , beverage and also for other recipes. Beets are a unique source of phytonutrients called betalains. Betanin and vulgaxanthin are the two best-studied betalains from beets, and both have been shown to provide antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and detoxification support. As the nutritional value of beetroot juice is very high due to its high content of carbohydrate, folate, fiber, iron, nitrate, manganese, potassium, vitamin C and in addition to that free fat, low in calories, inexpensive and beets are available throughout the year, the present project was undertaken to create awareness on the consumption of artificial and synthetic colourants.

Keywords : Betalains, Betaxanthins, Phytonutrients, Antioxidant, Healthylife

"A PERSPECTIVE STUDY ON NATURAL COLOURANTS (RED BETA VULGARIS) AND DEVELOPMENT OF VALUE ADDED PRODUCTS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.885-891, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907B51.pdf

"A PERSPECTIVE STUDY ON NATURAL COLOURANTS (RED BETA VULGARIS) AND DEVELOPMENT OF VALUE ADDED PRODUCTS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp885-891, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907B51.pdf