From birth, nature teaches us to make judgements on our environment based in large measure on color. As such, it plays a key role in food choice by influencing taste thresholds, sweetness perception, food preference, pleasantness, and acceptability. Its role is elusive and difficult to quantify, however, which at times has placed color in a secondary role to the other sensory characteristics, a position not entirely consistent with the facts. Color, in a quantitative sense, has been shown to be able to replace sugar and still maintain sweetness perception in flavored foods. It interferes with judgments of flavor intensity and identification and in so doing has been shown to dramatically influence the pleasantness and acceptability of foods. Studies in the literature have used cross-sectional population panels to study these effects, but a recent investigation of color-sensory interactions in beverages has compared the response of a college age group with the response of a panel consisting of a more mature population. Interestingly, the older group showed significant differences from the college age group in their response to the effects of color on several sensory parameters as well as showing a direct correlation between beverage consumption and color. Color is often taken for granted, but this position must be reevaluated in view of such studies and the need to create more appealing foods for different segments of our society.

There is considerable interest in utilization of natural pigment as food colorants, particularly from raw materials in adequate supply, such as wine grape pomace. The rate and degree of extraction of anthocyanins from grape pomace depends upon a number of factors; this research concerned two: solvent (ethanol, methanol, water), and acid (HCI, citric, tartaric, formic, acetic, propionic). Methanol was the best extractant being 20% more effective than ethanol and 73% more effective than water. HCl was most effective with ethanol, but is also very corrosive. Of the organic acids, citric was most effective with methanol and acetic acid with water.

Perceived sweetness and redness in five red colored solutions containing 0.25-5.0% FD&C Red 40 were quantified using magnitude estimation. Three panels of 14 subjects each evaluated solutions containing five sucrose concentrations ranging from 2.7-5.3%. Color had a statistically significant effect (pGO.05) on sweetness perception in 80% of the treatments. Sweetness in darker colored solutions was 2-10% greater than the lighter reference when the actual sucrose concentration was 1% less. Sweetness increased linearly over all sucrose concentrations and over a narrow range of color intcnsitics. Color was measured using the Gardner XL-23 Colorimeter and the G.E. Recording Spectrophotometer. All color measurements were converted to L*, a*, b* and the value arctan (a*/b*) -used to represent color intensity. The perception of increasing color intensity was a linear power law function of arctan (a*/b*).

Color and appearance, those nebulous aspects of food acceptability which are taken for granted by most consumers, are coming under increasingly severe scrutiny. For this reason, it is essential that an adequate knowledge base for measurement be available to those working in the field. This base must be grounded upon the fact that color is a sensory phenomenon, and its measurement must include the physical, psychological, and physiological aspects. That is, measurement must involve tristimulus colorimetry, whether obtained by spectrophotometric or colorimetric techniques. It is the object of this article to review the general area of tristimulus colorimetry along with the techniques required for measurement. It is essential to include a section on the manipulation of data as well, since colorimetric data is often misused. Further treatment will be given to object-light interactions and how these affect not only measurement but sample perception, since manipulation of the physical parameters of the sample can affect the total appearance and color. Instruments and their usage will be reviewed so that decisions may be made on the correct instrument for a particular measuring system. In addition, a section will be devoted to on-line color measurement which may facilitate continuous processes. A final section of this article will deal with some advances in data manipulation and the development of new scales for color measurement. Fundamental colorimetric theory is essential in this area for proper usage. It is the aim of this paper to integrate theory with application in order to facilitate optimization of both the color of food and its measurement.

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Whole wheat- and wheat bran-based ready-to-eat breakfast cereals could be important sources of dietary antioxidants. Of the antioxidants in wheat, free and esterified phenolic acids seem to have the greatest potential to be beneficial to health. Phenolic acids from breakfast cereals possess strong antioxidant activity in vitro at concentrations that would be obtained from a normal serving of whole wheat cereal. In addition, acid conditions and enzymic hydrolysis increase the solubility and activity of wheat phenolics suggesting that the digestive process could be important in altering the antioxidant potential of wheat-based foods. Current research on the antioxidant activity of wheat phenolics suggests that further research is warranted to determine the potential benefits of these dietary antioxidants. In addition, identification of both biological (e.g. digestion) and food processing conditions that impact the distribution, stability and activity of wheat antioxidants is needed in order to be able to produce food products with maximum health benefits.

The effect of color on sweetness perception, flavor intensity, acceptability and thirst quenching was evaluated. 77ze various studies included the development and administration of a questionnaire, preliminaq sensorypanel studies, three sensory panels of 20subjects each andfinally 3 consumer type taste panels offiom 59 -121 subjects each.The questionnaire indicated that consumers thought the sweetest beverages and those colored brown, red and orange would satisb thirst the most. The association ofsweetness with thirst quenching ability was an unexpected result but one that was validated in several of the panel studies which followed. l'he preliminary study done with a full factorial design showed that the samples with the lowest levels of acid and sugar as well as a combination of those with the lowest color and lowest sugar provided the greatestperception of thirst quenching.A series of small sensory panel studies of 20 subjects each allowed the further definition of the most appropriate color space. Samples were then reformulated to achieve this spacing and3 larger consumer type panels were conducted. Sweetness and perceived ability to quench thirst were found to be signijcantly affected by color in two of the three panels while flavor intensity and acceptability were found to be significantly affected in only one panel. These results indicate that color is related to quality characteristics other than appearance and should be considered in decisions affecting such characteristics.

The objective of this work was to quantify the contribution of fortification (defined here as adding nutrients beyond traditional enrichment standards) to dietary nutrient intakes in the United States. A list of fortified foods was developed that was relevant at the time of the analyses, and prefortification (naturally occurring) nutrients in the fortified foods were determined from industry-supplied data. Using dietary data from the 1989-1991 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII), intakes of nine nutrients were determined both as reported in the CSFII (i.e., postfortification) and also by using prefortification nutrient levels for the identified fortified foods. We report data for the total population age >/= 1 y based on respondents (n = 11,710) with 3 d of dietary data, as well as select age/gender subgroups. All data were weighted. Fortification substantially increased the intakes of all nutrients examined except calcium, in all age/gender groups but especially in children. In numerous cases, fortification was responsible for boosting median or 25th percentile intakes from below to above the RDA. The breakfast cereal category was responsible for nearly all the intake of nutrients from fortified foods, except vitamin C for which juice-type beverages made as great or a greater contribution. These data from 1989 to 1991 serve as a useful baseline with which to compare contributions of fortification as the practice expands. The large contribution of fortification even in 1989-1991 suggests that continued monitoring of fortification practices, using methods such as those presented here, is important.