**5.4 Anthocyanins for food additives**

Anthocyanins, as a kind of natural food pigment, have advantages of high security and abundant resources, as well as certain nutritional and dietary functions, as compared with synthetic pigments. In recent years, people pay more and more attention to food safety and health, and then anthocyanins have shown to have more and more concern for consumers and researchers. Currently, anthocyanins have been allowed to be put into production and used natural edible pigments including grape skin pigment, berry pigment, purple sweet potato pigment, perilla pigment, cabbage pigment, purple corn pigment, and other edible pigment [2]. Anthocyanins from blueberry fruits, as natural food additives, have been widely used in the lactic acid milk, cakes, and other food.
