Obtención de colorantes naturales a partir de Mortiño (Vaccinium myttillus L.), Uvilla (Physalis peruviana) y Tuna (Opuntia ficus-indica) para el uso alimenticio.

Abstract

The main purpose of this research was to extract natural colorants from bilberry (vaccinium myttillus), cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), and prickly pear for food use. First of all, a physical-chemical analysis of the raw material was carried out, then, it was followed a drying process using three types of dryers (trays, freeze-drying, and atomization), with three repetitions each one, at different temperatures. Subsequently, the pigments were extracted by means of the Soxhlet method by assembling a cartridge of 10, which gave as a result 9 types of dyes. After having gathered these data, their wavelengths were compared with those ones from the bibliographical resources according to the REGULATION (EU) No 231/2012. the best results were the dyes coming from the drying by the freeze-drying process, whose results in the spectrophotometer Uv. visible reported: for the bilberry (anthocyanins) 514nm, for the cape gooseberry (β-carotenes) 427 nm and for the prickly pear (betaxanthines) 482 nm. In addition to this, the different extraction processes were evaluated by a comparative matrix, whose findings for the bilberry, reported a time of 11 h, at 50oC, a drying performance of 20.04%, eliminating a humidity of 76.33%, and 44.65% of dye extracted, while the cape gooseberry reported a time of 9 h, at 55oC, a performance of drying time of 17.87%, eliminating a humidity of 73.78%, and 50.7% of extracted dye, and for the prickly pear a time of 12h, at 60oC, a drying performance of 12.46%, eliminating a humidity of 80.67%, with 51.21% of extracted dye. Finally, zinc, lead, arsenic, molds, and yeast tests were carried out according to the Mexican official norm nom-119ssal-1994, meeting the standard regulations in order to finally carry out the validation of “Toni“, the brand of a natural yogurt, and Chantilly cream, being suitable for human consumption. Therefore, it is recommended to use whatman extraction thimbles.