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The pigments of potato peel that contain all ranges of red and purple may be an alternative to industrial colorants and provide similar benefits as berries. |
To include healthy food in our diet is, more than a tendency, imperative for the human well-being. In this context, to consume healthy food that, in addition, has functional ingredients is a big plus, not only because they provide other properties but also because it is an innovation at the production level. With this idea in mind, the UFRO researcher of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. Antonieta Ruiz, wants to extract the potato peel pigments of native potatoes from the south of Chile and incorporate them as colorants for their use in the food industry. “I found out that they contained very high concentrations of anthocyanin, which is a pigment of the same kind that you can find in berries and that has a lot of beneficial biological activities and I thought it would be interesting to explore what we could do with it.” POTATOES´ BONUS This question was the basis for a FIA Project (Agricultural Innovation Foundation) with a budget of more than 200 million Chilean pesos and which examines more than 40 types of potatoes with different tonalities. “We want to extract these pigments and use them in the food industry as a substitute for artificial colorants, mainly in dairy products, flavored milk and some pastry products.” At the moment, Dr. Ruiz is in the middle of the selection and extraction process in order to verify which the optimum storage conditions for the required use are. “We are exploring the appropriate varieties for obtaining pigments with potential of health benefit effects and with agronomic yield. At the same time, we are creating stable extraction protocols in order to guarantee food safety and to make sure a stability that permits their massive use as an alternative to synthetic colorants. This would give the potatoes an unexpected value as raw material”, she concluded. Written by: Lorena Espinoza
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