Impact of sustainable emerging cold plasma technology on the optical properties of foods

The color profile of the food is an essential aspect in determining consumer acceptance. There are essential pigments that define the food color, including chlorophylls (green color), anthocyanins (red-purple color), betalains (red color), and carotenoids (yellow-orange color). The color pigments are affected by temperature, oxygen, light, and pH. Thus, the deterioration of coloring pigments during processing is essential to prevent it. Traditional methods could affect food quality, especially the physiochemical and color properties, which may reduce the consumer's acceptability. Therefore, cold plasma (CP) has been employed as a novel food processing method to preserve food's optical properties. Although common trends are noticed in all foods, the effectiveness of CP processing parameters varies based on the characteristics of foods, such as the nature of the food used for CP processing. Therefore, CP applications for processing various foods are essential for optimizing parameters for producing high-quality food. This review provides a comprehensive assessment and discussion on CP processing, its action mechanism, and other factors in preserving food color. Furthermore, it is recommended that the correlation between color and pigment retention needs to be further explored, which remains a challenging issue.