Anthocyanins of Fruits and Vegetables - Their Occurrence, Analysis and Role in Human Nutrition

Abstract

Anthocyanins of Fruits and Vegetables - Their Occurrence, Analysis and Role in Human NutritionAnthocyanins are one of the largest and most important group of water-soluble pigments in most species in the plant kingdom. They are accumulated in cell vacuoles and are largely responsible for diverse pigmentation from orange to red, purple and blue in flowers, fruits, such as: blackberry, red and black raspberries, blueberries, bilberries, cherries, currants, blood orange, elderberries, grapes, and vegetables such as: red onion, radish, red cabbage, red lettuce, egg-plant, red-skinned potato and purple sweet potato. Anthocyanins in fruits and vegetables are present in glycosylated forms. The qualitative and quantitative determination of anthocyanins in plant can be performed by classical (spectro-photometric) or contemporary methods - HPLC coupled with a various types of mass spectrometers or NMR apparatus. Anthocyanins are widely ingested by humans, mainly due to consumption of fruits, vegetables and red wines. Depending on the nutritional habits, the daily intake of anthocyanins for individuals has been estimated from several milligrams to hundreds of milligrams per person. Anthocyanins as well as other flavonoids occuring in fruits, and vegetables are protective against a variety of diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer. Also the visual acuity can be markedly improved through administration of anthocyanin pigments to animals and humans.

Estimating the impact of dye concentration on the photoelectrochemical performance of anthocyanin-sensitized solar cells: a power law model

“…These test fruits represent a structural variety of major natural anthocyanins (Table 1). [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] The pH of all dye extracts was measured and adjusted to the lowest observed pH value, which was 3.5 for strawberry, using a 0.1M HCl solution. The dyes were adsorbed onto the TiO 2 surface by immersing the coated electrodes in an aqueous solution of each dye for 24 h. The nonadsorbed dye was washed off with anhydrous ethanol.…”

The colours of durum wheat: a review

“…For pigmented wheat, use in the food industry has been more limited; in particular, purple bread wheat is crushed into large pieces that are spread over the outside of bread, whereas blue bread wheat does not appear to have any food applications at present (see Abdel-Aal et al 2006, and references therein). Although it has been predicted that the production and addition of anthocyanins as natural food colourants will steadily increase, particularly following the current trend away from synthetic colourants (Horbowicz et al 2008), at present there are only a few applications regarding anthocyanin pigments extracted from red rice (Ma et al 2000;Shipp and Abdel-Aal 2010). In this regard, investigations aimed at better defining the total and specific contents and the distribution of the anthocyanins in pigmented durum wheat accessions and varieties will be useful.…”

Antioxidant and toxicity properties of anthocyanin extracted from red flower of four tropical shrubs

“…According to the pH of the medium, anthocyanins may change from intensely red or orange under acidic conditions (pH (pH < 2) due to the presence of eight conjugated double bonds carrying a positive charge (Horbowicz et al 2008).…”