Simultaneous quantification of food colorants and preservatives in sports drinks by the high performance liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis methods evaluated using the red-green-blue model

•Food preservatives and colorants quantified in sports drinks by CE and HPLC methods.•Amounts of colorants are rather safe, whereas preservatives, potential dangerous.•CE and HPLC were profoundly and transparently compared using the RGB color model.•The choice of a better method depends on the weight of the “green” criteria. Consumption of sports drinks is generally associated with a healthy lifestyle, despites a common addition of colorants and preservatives to these products. This work presents the novel methods based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE), aimed at the simultaneous quantification of both these groups of additives within a single separation. The results obtained show that colorants are generally added in low and rather safe amounts, whereas preservatives (benzoate and sorbate) are much more abundant, and likely pose a potential risk, especially for children. The overall potential of the HPLC and CE methods was critically assessed and compared using the RGB additive color model, a user-friendly tool that allows one to point out and encode particular capabilities and general potential of a method using colors, and to express its holistic effectiveness with one integrated quantitative parameter from 0 to 100%. As a result, the potential predispositions of both methods were delineated.