3.2.4. Color

It is crucial to control the color of mayonnaise samples to obtain the desired color that most affects the consumer's willingness to purchase or taste a new product. Therefore, values of lightness (L\*), redness (a\*) and yellowness (b\*) of the prepared vegan mayonnaise samples are listed in Table 6.


**Table 6.** Color of mayonnaises.

*n* = 5; SD—Standard Deviation; Different letters (a–f) within the same column indicate significant differences between color parameters (L\*—lightness; a\*—redness; b\*—yellowness) of aquafaba-based mayonnaise samples with blends of refined rapeseed oil and cold-pressed rapeseed oil (MRO), cold-pressed sunflower oil (MSO), cold-pressed linseed oil (MLO), and cold-pressed camelina oil (MCO); MT1—commercial egg yolk mayonnaise from producer 1; MT2—commercial egg yolk mayonnaise from producer 2; MV—commercial vegan mayonnaise (Tukey's post hoc test, *p* < 0.05).

The Tukey's post hoc test indicated that the color parameters for mayonnaises with blends of RRO and various cold-pressed oils significantly differ from each other. The highest lightness value (L\* = 48.7–47.7) had MRO, MT1 and MT2, respectively. It can be caused by the smaller OD sizes in these samples (Figure 3). Due to light scattering, mayonnaises with smaller OD sizes are whiter, and also the intensity of the yellow color is lower [56]. It is noteworthy that store-bought samples had higher redness values (a\* = 2.2–3.4) than the prepared aquafaba-based samples (a\* = −0.3–0.9). High yellowness values (b\* = 9.0–11.2) for commercial samples MT1 and MT2 containing a high egg yolk content can be preferable by consumers. The highest b\* value (11.3) for the MV sample was probably caused by the addition of carotenoids. High b\* values (6.7–10.9) and low a\* values (−0.3–0.9) for MRO, MSO, MLO and MCO samples with cold-pressed oils can be explained by the presence of natural pigments, mainly carotenoids and chlorophyll, in added press-cold oils.

For comparison, the a\* and b\* values of mayonnaises with different oil-to-aquafaba (O/A) ratios increased significantly for higher oil contents in mayonnaises (a\* = 3.5–4.1 and b\* = 36.5–39.9 for O/A = 80/15, while a\* = 2.6–2.9 and b\* = 30.5–31.8 for O/A = 70/25). Moreover, mayonnaise samples with smaller OD sizes had greater brightness values [23].
