Colour in food - improving quality

Understand and exploit the significance of food colour as a component of quality

Colour is one of the most important cues used by consumers to assess the quality of a food product. And yet it is also a subject when is often not paid sufficient attention - partly perhaps because it can be difficult to measure and complex to manipulate. This hardback book reviews how food colour is perceived and measured and looks at ways by which it can be better understood and controlled.

Part I looks at colour perception and measurement. It begins by discussing the concept of the total appearance of food, of which colour is a critical component, and then looks in more detail at instrumental and sensory measurement of food colour and the factors that can influence these assessments. It also has a chapter on the use of colour in sorting bulk foods, which draws on examples such as coffee, rice, fruits and vegetables.

Part II begins with a review of the chemistry of food colours, which provides a base for subsequent chapters which address issues such as colour stability in vegetables and meat, analysis of pigments responsible for food colour, and manipulation of food colour through use of colourings or biotechnology.

Contents

Introduction

Part I - Perceiving and measuring colour

• The perception and sensory assessment of colour
• Colour measurement of food: principles and practice
• Models of colour perception and colour appearance
• Colour measurement of foods by colour reflectance
• Colour sorting for the bulk food industry

Part II - Colour control in food

• The chemistry of food colour
• Colour stability in vegetables
• Modelling colour stability in meat
• Analysing changes in fruit pigments
• Improving natural pigments by genetic modification of crop plants
• Food colourings
• Developments in natural colourings
• Calibrated colour imaging analysis of food

Hardback book - 378 pages