Different foods get their colour from different sources, green foods tend to get their colour from a natural plant colour called chlorophyll. Where as red foods get their colour from an antioxidant called Lycopene and blue or purple foods get their colour from anthocyanin which is a flavanoid, another type of antioxidant. Anti-oxidants basically help to protect our body from harmful things that can cause disease. As different foods get their colour from different sources it is important we ‘eat a rainbow’ of colours and eat a variety of fruit and vegetables. This is true for natural foods like fruits and vegetables but for foods that are not natural like sweets and cakes there are artificial colours added which give them their colour. These artificial colours are not harmful but do not contain the health benefits that we get from different coloured fruit and vegetables.
As Elaine has said, colours come from different substances in the food. Some of them naturally present in them and other we add them to the food to give them colour.
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