What pigments can penetrate into raw meat?

Pigments commonly used in meat products include monascus red, temptation red, sorghum red, lycopene, caramel pigment and cochineal red.

Color is an important factor in evaluating meat products. Adding color developing agent to meat products can make the products have good color and improve the quality of products. In traditional meat products, nitrite is usually added as a color developer, which seriously threatens human health. At present, food pigment substitutes are the development direction of meat products chromogenic agents.

Edible pigments can be divided into natural pigments and edible synthetic pigments according to their sources and properties. Edible natural pigments are mainly pigments extracted from animal and plant tissues, including microbial pigments.

Edible natural pigments are generally harmless to human body except Garcinia cambogia, which is highly toxic to human body and cannot be used, but the price of natural pigments is high and the stability is poor. Edible synthetic pigment belongs to artificial pigment, and mostly takes coal tar as raw material. Low cost, bright color, strong coloring power and various colors, but exceeding a certain limit is harmful to human health.