| Red cabbage anthocyanins are of great interest as natural food colorants in the food industry; as they represent
the color over a broad range of pH-values compared to anthocyanins from other natural sources. It is important
to select an appropriate technique with high recovery of anthocyanins from red cabbage, among which
extraction with organic solvents is the most applied extraction method. Currently, novel extraction techniques
are employed as an alternative to the solvent extraction method, providing advantages such as higher anthocyanin
recovery in a shorter time, lower solvent utilization, and minimum quality degradation. However, the
incorporation of extracted anthocyanins into foodstuffs and pharmacological products is limited due to their low
bioavailability and relative instability toward environmental adverse conditions, such as pH, temperature, enzymes,
light, oxygen and ascorbic acid. In addition to increased structural stability of anthocyanins through
glycosylation and acylation, their stability could be improved by copigmentation and encapsulation. |