PDF《INTO THE MARKET》

1955 and crossed over

60 percent in 2009[7]. The excessive increase is due to higher consumer'

s reliance on processed foods, such as soft drinks, breakfast cereals, candies, snack foods, baked goods, frozen desserts, pickles, and salad dressings, where synthetic colors being used extensively. Synthetic products such as Jell-O and Froot Loops are colored with bright dyes to attract consumers to purchase those products. However, the question is how we can replace synthetic food coloring with a natural one. In reality, consumer'

s choice has been increasedin recent years towards using natural food additive [3]. However, synthetic food additives are more available in the market as there are no alternate substitutes in the market for the consumers. In that case, there is no surprise that if organizations attempt to produce natural food additives rather than producing synthetic food additives. Therefore, the current paper is aimed to introduce a natural food additive by using dragon fruit albedo namely Dragon Fruit Coloring powder (DFCP). It is expected to be tremendously healthy and attractive especially for consumers. DevelopingDFCPas the natural food colorants is not only healthy for human IJRRAS

15 (2) May

2013 Moshfeghi &

al. Dragon Fruit into the Market

270 body, but also is friendly for the society and environment. DFCPis estimated to be cost effective, as it is sourced from the only disposable part (peel) of the fruit. The companies that make products from dragon fruit might diversify their production line into new product using fruit peel to avoid waste. The DFCPitself has several properties compared to the extracted flesh from fruit, which is feasible to carry, packing and less space for storing. 2. DRAGON FRUIT AS A FLAVONOIDS SOURCE Hylocereuspolyrhizus , red pitaya , or dragon fruit is a member of the Cactaceae family from the subfamily Cactoidea [14] with red purple colored flesh and black seeds. Dragon fruit has obtained attention during last few years among the people in society, mostly in Asian countries, due to its color, nutritional value, and other features[9, 8].It representsa significant source of antioxidants which is a valueadded characteristic to any food crop [15]. The red layerof the fruit has rich sources of vitamins e.g. B1, B2, B3, and C, minerals e.g. potassium, sodium, calcium, iron,and phosphorus,and nutrientse.g. fat, protein, carbohydrate, flavonoid, crude fiber, thiamin, phytoalbumin,niacin, pyridoxine, kobalamin,glucose, betacyanins, phenolic, carotene,and polyphenol [12]. Moreover, this fruit has relatively high antioxidant activity in comparison with other subtropical fruits[4]. Betalins, for the first time, extracted from red beet (Beta vulgaris) and is used largely for food coloring additives and the extract includes red and yellow pigments, namely betacyanins and betaxanthins, respectively.Betalinswere assumed to be flavonoids, however,the evidence determines thatit contains nitrogen and may notalterthe color reversibly in anidentical way as an anthocyanin do to pH.Betacyanin is the main component (95%) of the red pigments in the extract. In addition, dragon fruit peel includes betacyanin that can make contribution to produce beauty and health products[5].In Caryophyllales family,the betalins are placed in same group to anthocyanin pigments [2, 10, 16]. Due to unfavorable earthy flavor of geosmin and pyrazine derivatives ........