Colour in Food

Colour is one of the most important cues used by consumers to assess the quality of a food product. It may be defined as the individual's response to the visual signals generated by the light on a product. This important collection reviews how colour is perceived and measured, and ways in which it can be better understood and controlled in food.

Part one looks at colour perception and measurement. Chapter 2 discusses the concept of the total appearance of food, of which colour is one component, and relates this to sensory assessment techniques. The following chapters consider the principles of instrumental colour measurement, models of colour appearance, colour measurement by colour reflectance, and sorting by colour. Part two begins with a review of the chemistry of food colorants. This provides a context for the following chapters which focus on the factors determining colour stability in vegetables, fruits and meat. A final group of chapters then look at colour enhancement of foods from the use of genetic modification to developments in natural colourings.

Colour in food is a standard work on both understanding, measuring and controlling one of the most important quality attributes of any food product.