The production of cheese-flavored extruded snack exploiting anti-microbial properties of natural food colors

In this study, the effects of some edible pigments used in the food industry on pathogenic bacteria were investigated. For this purpose, five natural food colors were selected consisted of curcumin, β-carotene, paprika oleoresin, lycopene and turmeric oleoresin. The impacts of each color on bacterial species including Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, and Staphylococcus aureus were investigated by using disc diffusion method, individually and collectively. The results have shown that, by combining these colors provided some mixtures with reasonable preventative effects against those bacteria; moreover, mixtures which contained curcumin or turmeric oleoresin demonstrated a better inhibitory effect in compare to mixtures lack of those colors. Consequently, the best synergetic inhibitory effect was related to a mixture of curcumin–beta-carotene–paprika (CBP) on Bacillus cereus. Furthermore, based on results, a mixture containing curcumin-lycopene was selected and used in snack coating to investigate the antimicrobial properties of cheese-flavored extruded snacks. Therefore, adding these natural colors to food not only increase their acceptability but also enhance the antimicrobial properties.