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Why are colour additives used in foods?

Colour is an important property of foods that adds to our enjoyment of eating. The primary reasons for adding colours to foods include:

• To offset colour loss due to exposure to light, air, extremes of temperature, moisture and storage conditions
• To compensate for natural or seasonal variations in food raw materials or the effects of processing and storage to meet consumer expectations (Masking or disguising inferior quality, however, are unacceptable uses of colours).
• To enhance colours that occur naturally but at levels weaker than those usually associated with a given food.