Zhang Jianing, Zhang Junjun, Zhang Lidan, Xue Yuhong, Zhang Ke
Agricultural Product Processing and Storage Lab, School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China.
Foods. 2025 Jun 24;14(13):2222. doi: 10.3390/foods14132222.
During processing and storage, vegetables often experience undesirable color changes, including fading, lightening, or yellowing and softening, due to browning (enzymatic and non-enzymatic) and chlorophyll degradation. These changes diminish commercial and nutritional value. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain vegetable color and improve the quality of vegetable-based dishes. To address these issues, it is a scientific and practical necessity to summarize and discuss existing strategies and innovative techniques. This review first highlights the mechanisms of vegetable browning. This review then provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in methods for color preservation, focusing on underlying mechanisms and techniques for inhibiting color changes from physical, chemical, and biological perspectives. A review of innovative technologies suggests that effective color preservation in vegetables is achieved by inhibiting the conditions that lead to three unfavorable color change reactions: enzymatic browning, non-enzymatic browning, and chlorophyll degradation. Current research frequently employs combined approaches that integrate two or more techniques to mitigate these adverse color changes. Moreover, most of these methods could simultaneously inhibit the three reaction processes. Future research directions are proposed for in-depth investigations into the molecular mechanisms of color changes in vegetables and the impact of treatments on the nutritional value.
在加工和储存过程中，蔬菜常常会出现不理想的颜色变化，包括褪色、变浅、变黄以及软化，这是由于褐变（酶促和非酶促）和叶绿素降解所致。这些变化会降低蔬菜的商业价值和营养价值。因此，有必要保持蔬菜的色泽并提高以蔬菜为原料的菜肴的品质。为了解决这些问题，总结和讨论现有的策略及创新技术在科学和实践上都是必要的。本综述首先着重介绍蔬菜褐变的机制。接着，本综述全面概述了近期在颜色保存方法方面的进展，重点从物理、化学和生物学角度探讨抑制颜色变化的潜在机制和技术。对创新技术的综述表明，通过抑制导致三种不利颜色变化反应（酶促褐变、非酶促褐变和叶绿素降解）的条件，可以有效实现蔬菜的颜色保存。当前的研究经常采用整合两种或更多技术的联合方法来减轻这些不利的颜色变化。此外，这些方法大多能同时抑制这三个反应过程。本文还提出了未来的研究方向，以便深入探究蔬菜颜色变化的分子机制以及处理对营养价值的影响。
