Vegetable Carbon
What it does
Black colour.
How it's made
Charcoal made by carbonising plant material.
Vegetable carbon is a natural black colour — essentially food-grade charcoal — used to give black and grey shades to sweets, coatings, cheeses and novelty foods. It is pure carbon and is one of the few permitted black colours.
It is made by charring plant material, such as wood or other vegetable matter, at high temperature in a controlled, low-oxygen environment so that it carbonises rather than burns to ash. The resulting char is then activated and purified — washed and treated to remove impurities — leaving very fine particles of nearly pure carbon.
The carbon is milled to a fine black powder and standardised. Because it is an insoluble pigment, it colours by being dispersed through the food rather than dissolving, and food-grade vegetable carbon is made to strict purity limits, particularly on trace contaminants from the charring process.
Possible reactions
Generally well tolerated.