What is ANNATTO? | What Is That Ingredient

What is ANNATTO?

Is made from achiote tree. It is mostly used to color cheeses orange (like cheddar). In its pure form it tastes lightly sweet and peppery. Some people say that it tastes similar to nutmeg. Annatto is one of the top 10 food allergens in America.

Where does ANNATTO come from?

It comes from the seed pods of the achiote tree. Inside the spiney seed pods are seeds and a redish orange pulp.

How is ANNATTO made?

Achiote seed pods are collected crushed (to open) and then the water is added to the mixture, the mash is then filtered to remove the seeds and husk buts and any other detris that may be in the solution. Sometimes the solution is dehydrated into a pouder before being used in cheeses and other common dairy products.

Is ANNATTO healty for me?

Annatto unfortunatly is one of the top 10 food allergens accroding to the FDA. Because it is a natural occurring food dye products with annatto can still be marketed as 100% natural.

More information about ANNATTO.

Cheddar cheese is often colored, and even as early as 1860, the real reason for this was unclear: English cheesemaker Joseph Harding stated "to the cheese consumers of London who prefer an adulterated food to that which is pure I have to announce an improvement in the annatto with which they compel the cheesemakers to colour the cheese".

One theory is that cheeses regarded as superior in the 16th century had somewhat yellow color, possibly from high levels of carotene in the grass on which the dairy cattle fed. Producers of inferior cheese added annatto to the milk to make the cheese appear better quality, thus to command a higher price.

As a food color, annatto has less tendency to oxidize than beta carotene. Solvent-extracted annatto pigment present in edible oils at even low practical use levels, markedly delays polymerization of the oils during heating, and thus delays the development of the unhealthy by-products of polymerization.[citation needed] Whether this effect is also present in oil-extracted annatto pigment, where annatto seeds are held in edible oil at high temperature under near vacuum or inert gas, a process that may itself induce polymerization, is not known.

Annatto is not one of the "Big Eight" allergens (cow's milk, egg, peanut, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat) which are responsible for >90% of allergic food reactions. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and experts at the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program (FARRP) at the University of Nebraska do not at present consider annatto to be a major food allergen.

Also known as

This ingredient may also appear on labels as: ANNATTO COLOR, ANNATTO EXTRACT.