Research over the past decade has produced incontrovertible evidence for a vast array of health benefits arising from the consumption of fruits and vegetables. In an endeavor to identify the active health-promoting ingredients, many researchers have focused on the properties of the flavonoids, a large class of phenolic compounds that is abundant in such foods. Most prominent among the flavonoids are the anthocyanins-universal plant colorants responsible for the red, purple, and blue hues evident in many fruits, vegetables, cereal grains, and flowers. Represented by over 600 molecular structures as identified to date, anthocyanins are of particular interest to the food colorant industry due to their ability to impart vibrant colours to the product. Now it seems highly likely that they also enhance the health-promoting qualities of foods.
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Konczak et al. (2004) studied this question.