Dr. Sakamon Devahastin, Professor

Department of Food Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Bangkok, Thailand.

Lecture for Students and Teachers

Title: Production of Highly Stable Natural Colorants

Time: Nov. 29, 2018, 15:00 am.

Place: the No.3 lecture hall on the third floor of the conference center.

Introduction to Dr. Sakamon Devahastin:

Dr. Sakamon Devahastin is currently a professor in the Department of Food Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) in Bangkok, Thailand. His main research interests are in both thermal and non-thermal processing of foods and biomaterials, in particular the development and study of novel drying technologies for heat- and oxygen-sensitive materials, and also in material property and structural characterization as well as computational fluid dynamics and heat/mass transfer. He has so far published more than 160 papers in referred international journals and given some 100 presentations at various international conferences. He is an author/co-author of 16 book chapters, author/editor of four books and co-inventor of 4 patents. He has served as Senior Associate Editor of an archival journal Drying Technology and been on the editorial boards of various other journals in food and thermal engineering. Among the many awards bestowed upon him, Dr. Devahastin was awarded the Young Technologist Award by the Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Technology under the Patronage of H.M. the King of Thailand in 2004; the TRF-CHE-Scopus® Researcher Award in Engineering and Multidisciplinary Category by the Thailand Research Fund (TRF), Commission on Higher Education (CHE) and Scopus® as well as the Taylor & Francis Award for Sustained Exemplary Service to Drying Technology and Excellence in Drying Research Contributions by Taylor & Francis, both in 2009. He is the recipient of the 2012 National Outstanding Researcher Award (Engineering and Industrial Research Category) from the National Research Council of Thailand, the 2014 Award for Excellence in Drying from the Association Française pour le Séchage dans l’Industrie et l’Agriculture (French Drying Association for Industry and Agriculture) and the 2018 Ajinomoto Award for Outstanding Food Science and Technology Researcher from the Ajinomoto Foundation and the Food Science and Technology Association of Thailand. He has been elected Associate Fellow of the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Thailand since 2016. Dr. Devahastin received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from McGill University, Montreal, Canada in 2001.

Abstract:

Color is one of the most important characteristics of food as color gives first impression on the food quality to the potential consumer. Synthetic colorants are commonly used in the food industry due to their bright color and high stability against changes in pH and temperature. However, prolonged consumption of synthetic food colorants are known to be associated with many adverse health conditions, including cancer and hyperactivity in children. While natural colorants represent an interesting alternative to their synthetic counterpart and have already been used in some countries, especially those in Europe, natural colorants are known to have important technical limitations; natural colorants are thermally unstable and can suffer significant color alteration upon change in acidity, which is a common phenomenon in food processing and preparation. Color instability and alteration can also occur during storage of food prior to its sale point. Development and production of highly stable natural colorants are therefore of great importance.

In this presentation, a brief review on colorants and color pigments from fruits and vegetables will first be given. This will follow by our preliminary results on the production of highly stable natural green colorant. The effects of both physical (e.g., blanching and steaming) and chemical (e.g., metal complexations of chlorophylls) pretreatments that are used to improve the stability of the chlorophylls-based pigments will be shown and discussed. Some sample uses of the colorant in model and real foods will also be given.

(School of Food and Biological Engineering)