A comprehensive review of Clitoria ternatea L. flower- extraction and application in food industry

Clitoria ternatea L., (Butterfly pea) is the ornamental plant grown worldwide with many medicinal and therapeutic properties. The butterfly pea plant is rich in bio active compounds and known for applications in various aspects of medicine, cosmetics, agriculture and food industry. The flower of this plant is a rich source of anthocyanin’s that accounts for deep natural blue color. This paper presents a brief review on the traditional and novel technologies for extraction of bioactive compounds from the butterfly pea flower and its application in food industry. Traditional method of extraction of food color from these flowers results in degradation of anthocyanin and phenolic compounds at high extraction temperature. Non-thermal extraction methods like Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction (UAE), Microwave-Assisted Extraction (MAE) proved to be beneficial in preserving the heat-sensitive compounds such as anthocyanins and flavonoids. UAE creates cavitation for cell disruption whereas MAE uses dielectric heating for faster cell rupture for extraction of bioactive compounds. The anthocyanin extracted from butterfly pea flower has a potential as natural food colorant and has wide application in bakery foods, yoghurts, functional desserts. The unique property of change in color of anthocyanin’s extracted from this flower from blue to purple with change in pH was used in monitoring food spoilage. Hence, the anthocyanin extract from butter fly pea flower can function as promising natural colorant alternative to synthetic blue color as well used in intelligent packaging in food industry.