Production and Analytical Aspects of Natural Pigments to Enhance Alternative Meat Product Color

Abstract

Color is a major feature that strongly influences the consumer’s perception, selection, and acceptance of various foods. An improved understanding regarding bio-safety protocols, health welfare, and the nutritional importance of food colorants has shifted the attention of the scientific community toward natural pigments to replace their toxic synthetic counterparts. However, owing to safety and toxicity concerns, incorporating natural colorants directly from viable sources into plant-based meat (PBM) has many limitations. Nonetheless, over time, safe and cheap extraction techniques have been developed to extract the purified form of coloring agents from raw materials to be incorporated into PBM products. Subsequently, extracted anthocyanin has displayed compounds like Delphinidin-3-mono glucoside (D3G) at 3.1 min and Petunidin-3-mono glucoside (P3G) at 5.1 277, 515, and 546 nm at chromatographic lambda. Fe-pheophytin was successfully generated from chlorophyll through the ion exchange method. Likewise, the optical density (OD) of synthesized leghemoglobin (LegH) indicated that pBHA bacteria grow more rigorously containing ampicillin with a dilution factor of 10 after 1 h of inoculation. The potential LegH sequence was identified at 2500 bp through gel electrophoresis. The color coordinates and absorbance level of natural pigments showed significant differences (p < 0.05) with the control. The development of coloring agents originating from natural sources for PBM can be considered advantageous compared to animal myoglobin in terms of health and functionality. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to produce natural coloring agents for PBM by extracting and developing chlorophyll from spinach, extracting anthocyanins from black beans, and inserting recombinant plasmids into microorganisms to produce LegH.