Is there a common food that we think of as colored, but which is naturally white?

[Leo_Bloom]

@Quercus

Farmed Salmon: the fish are fed red food coloring to turn their flesh to the expected, well, salmon hue. (Wild salmon eat crustaceans that provide the color). Otherwise they’d be white like most other fish.

[my italics]

I agree with your assessment of salmon, but “white like most other fish” seems to me way off mark.

[Leo_Bloom]

Fresh, consumer ready beef is purple. The mechanisms of packaging and O2 and CO2 to bring the more “bloody” color out is beyond me, but is discussed here: Food Packaging: Principles and Practice, Second Edition - Gordon L. Robertson - Google Books

[rowrrbazzle]

Grape juice is naturally clear, but when bottled or in concentrate, purple coloring is added.

[Amblydoper]

@Quercus

Farmed Salmon: the fish are fed red food coloring to turn their flesh to the expected, well, salmon hue. (Wild salmon eat crustaceans that provide the color). Otherwise they’d be white like most other fish.

Astaxanthin is not a food coloring. It is a carotenoid nutrient that salmon needs to live.
http://www.salmonfacts.org/color.html

[Amblydoper]

@rowrrbazzle

Grape juice is naturally clear…

It is? So how do they make red wine?

[appleciders]

@beowulff

Sodas.
I once had a chocolate cream soda that was water-clear. It was a very peculiar example of cognitive dissonance.

Didn’t Pepsi make an ill-fated clear version? “Pepsi Crystal”, I believe. I know marketing types who still like to laugh at that one.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@rowrrbazzle

Grape juice is naturally clear, but when bottled or in concentrate, purple coloring is added.

I’m sorry, but that’s not true. Purple grape juice, labeled 100% Juice is just that. No sugars, no artificial colors or flavors.

Ingredients: Grape juice from concentrate (filtered water, grape juice concentrate), Grape Juice, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C). No artificial flavors or colors added. (Contains natural fruit sugars only.) Made from Concord Grapes.

[Bartman]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

I’m sorry, but that’s not true. Purple grape juice, labeled 100% Juice is just that. No sugars, no artificial colors or flavors.

Right. I’ve bottled hundreds of gallons of the stuff over the years from backyard grapes. If you use the right grapes, like concords, you can get a really dark purple juice.

[Senegoid]

@Amblydoper

[in response to earlier remark by rowrrbazzle that grape juice is clear]

It is? So how do they make red wine?

Most wine grapes are various shades of reddish on the outside but standard grape pale green inside. To make red and rose wines, they leave some amount of the skins in while they ferment it, then filter out the solid remains afterward.

(I learned this on a winery tour in Paso Robles.)

[pulykamell]

@Senegoid

Most wine grapes are various shades of reddish on the outside but standard grape pale green inside. To make red and rose wines, they leave some amount of the skins in while they ferment it, then filter out the solid remains afterward.

(I learned this on a winery tour in Paso Robles.)

This is correct. Champagne, for instance, usually has pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes (both dark-skinned grapes), in addition to chardonnay. Not all red/black grapes have greenish juices, but most do.

[Mangetout]

@Quercus

I think real wasabi paste is pale green, but you almost never get real wasabi (especially in the US). What you get is horseradish dyed pale-to-unnaturally-bright green. ,

Am I right in recalling someone saying that real wasabi is not explosively pungent also? (IIRC someone said it should taste like strong watercress)

[amanset]

@ralph124c

Most commercial marmelades, fruit jams are colored.
In Sweden, most jams are not allowed to be colored with dyes-so your strawberry jam is kinda grey, not red at all.

I have never seen this in my life.

[Panurge]

@DrDeth

For decades pistachios came dyed red.

Fresh pistacios are pink - perhaps that’s what you are thinking of?

@ralph124c

Most commercial marmelades, fruit jams are colored.
In Sweden, most jams are not allowed to be colored with dyes-so your strawberry jam is kinda grey, not red at all.

Like many others have said this is not my experience at all. Swedish strawberry jam is just as red as any other.

@kombatminipig

I do, in fact, have a jar of perfectly Swedish strawberry jam right in front of me (of the “Den gamle fabrik”-brand). I assure you it’s a very healthy scarlet red.

It’s a Danish brand. I think our rules and regulations on food coloring are as strict as the Swedish rules, but it’s not a valid example here.

[One_And_Only_Wanderers]

I remember something about farmed Salmon being white and they ahve to feed it chemicals to replace the natural food a wild salmon eats that gives it it’s colour?

[kombatminipig]

@Panurge

It’s a Danish brand. I think our rules and regulations on food coloring are as strict as the Swedish rules, but it’s not a valid example here.

Yes and no. If it didn’t fit the Swedish guidelines, it wouldn’t be allowed to be sold with the label “sylt”. Swedish consumer laws are very strict when it comes to labels, not allowing sausages with to little meat content to be called “korv” for example.

[Cheesesteak]

@Panurge

Fresh pistacios are pink - perhaps that’s what you are thinking of?

Search for red pistachios… Those are the pistachios of my youth, would leave a nice red stain on your fingers.

[Panurge]

D’oh. Should have done that from the start. Man, they look strange - I’ve never seen them before.

[obfusciatrist]

Yeah, my wife and I were just talking the other day wondering when it was decided that pistachios would no longer be dyed (either red or green) and if it is even possible to get them that way any more since it has been so long since we’ve seen them.

[pulykamell]

@Mangetout

Am I right in recalling someone saying that real wasabi is not explosively pungent also? (IIRC someone said it should taste like strong watercress)

It’s smoother and somehow more delicate than horseradish, but it’s still in that general flavor category. If you had real wasabi, you’d still recognize it.

[Ruken]

@pulykamell

It’s smoother and somehow more delicate than horseradish, but it’s still in that general flavor category. If you had real wasabi, you’d still recognize it.

I’ve heard that the pungency fades quickly, and that it pretty much has to be used freshly ground. However, allyl isothiocyanate is perfectly stable when it comes from other ground plants, so I suspect this is wrong.