Reflectance colorimetry: a mirror for food quality. A mini review

As known, color plays a dominant role in orienting consumer choices. Beyond the individual perception, color expressed by foodstuff is strictly associated to quality, genuineness, work-up and storage conditions and could be correlated with the presence of a characteristic chemical profile. This represents a matter of crucial importance in functional foods, where bioactive molecules are often intensely colored and in all foods whose composition change could undergo bleaching and browning processes. The possibility to analyze food matrices as such (jellies or homogenates, turbid juices, and solid forms) without any extraction or solubilization treatments, sample preparation and waste production, represents an undoubtable advantage to clarify what could alter the labile pigment component. In the present review a brief survey is presented about the last 5-year application of the colorimetric CIEL*a*b* analysis to selected food matrices, such as fruits, fruit derivatives like juices and jams, wines or oils, honeys, beer, meat, and food colorants. The main results about food characterization and valorization and about evaluation of the treatment and storage impact on foodstuff composition and quality are here reported.