Natural food colorants and bioactive extracts from some edible flowers

Consumers' interest in natural coloring has been growing in parallel with their consciousness of food-health relationship. Anthocyanin based colorings bear antioxidative features which makes this group of colorings attractive. In this research, heat stabilizations and some bioactive properties of anthocyanin-based extracts (ABE) obtained from corn poppy, tulip, rose and roselle, were determined. While the highest amount of phenolic substance was determined in the tulip (113.8 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE) g(-1)dry extract), the highest amount of anthocyanin is in the corn poppy (405.2 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside g(-1) dry extract). Among the extracts, the corn poppy has been determined to have the highest antiradical capacity with 55.9 mu g mL(-1), and the tulip, with a level of 63.4 mg of ascorbic acid equivalent (AAE) g(-1) dry extract, has been determined to have the highest antioxidant activity. While there has been no antimicrobial effect of corn poppy extract observed on any microorganism, roselle extracts have been found to display high antimicrobial activity. Heat stability of ABEs was investigated in buffer solution pH 3.5. The flowers have high bioactive activities.