Carmine

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This article is about the pigment. For other uses, see Carmine (disambiguation).

Carmine

Carmine (IPA: [ˈkɑrmaɪn -mɪn]), also called Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470 or E120, is a pigment of a bright red color obtained from the carminic acid produced by the cochineal insect, and is used as a general term for a particularly deep red color. Carmine is used in the manufacture of artificial flowers, paints, rouge, cosmetics, food additives, and crimson ink.

Carmine is used as a food dye in many different products such as juice, ice cream, yogurt, and candies, eyeshadow, lipstick, etc. Although principally a red dye, it is found in many foods that are shades of red, pink, and purple. As a food dye it has been known to cause severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock in some people^{[citation needed]} . The United States Food and Drug Administration agency (FDA) has so far failed to ban its use and claims it found no evidence of a "significant hazard" to the general population.[1] It is currently not even an FDA requirement that carmine be listed in all ingredient lists, and may sometimes be represented under "artificial coloring" or "added coloring". As of the end of January 2006, the FDA is evaluating a proposal that would require food products containing carmine to disclose this fact on the ingredient label. It was also announced that the FDA will separately review the ingredient labels of prescription drugs which contain colorings derived from carmine. A request from the Center for Science in the Public Interest to require ingredient labels to explicitly state that carmine may cause severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock and that is derived from insects was declined by the FDA. Food industries were aggressively opposed to the idea of writing "insect based" on the label and they finally agreed to simply putting "carmine". Food products containing carmine-based food dye may concern groups whose members are allergic to it or who do not consume any or certain animals, such as vegetarians, vegans, and religions with dietary law (e.g. kashrut in Judaism and halaal in Islam), and those who simply do not want to eat insects.

Carmine may be prepared from cochineal, by boiling dried insects in water to extract the carminic acid and then treating the clear solution with alum, cream of tartar, stannous chloride, or potassium hydrogen oxalate; the coloring and animal matters present in the liquid are thus precipitated. Other methods are in use; sometimes egg white, fish glue, or gelatine are added before the precipitation.

The quality of carmine is affected by the temperature and the degree of illumination during its preparation, sunlight being requisite for the production of a brilliant hue. It differs also according to the amount of alumina present in it. It is sometimes adulterated with cinnabar, starch and other materials; from these the carmine can be separated by dissolving it in ammonia. Good carmine should crumble readily between the fingers when dry.

Carmine lake is a pigment obtained by adding freshly precipitated alumina to decoction of cochineal.

Carmine can be used as a staining agent in microbiology, as a Best's carmine to stain glycogen, mucicarmine to stain acidic mucopolysaccharides, and carmalum to stain cell nuclei. In these applications, it is applied together with a mordant, usually an Al(III) salt.

[edit] References

Amy Butler Greenfield – A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire, Harper Collins, 2005. ISBN 0060522755
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.