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

[Wallenstein]

@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 favourite tale about fish colouring (via Snopes):

There are two kinds of Alaska salmon: white and pink. The white was advertised as “guaranteed not to turn pink in the can!” Not to be outdone, the pink-salmon folks countered: “Guaranteed: No bleach used in processing!”

[Nava]

@Quercus

Though, come to think of it, sausage and cured meats might be something that one wouldn’t expect food coloring in, but I’m sure many do have some various colorings (traditional or not). For instance, Spanish sobrassada is a traditional sausage that contains enough paprika to change the color, and on the other end, many hot dogs have some red food coloring.

Chorizo, chistorra and pepperoni as well, re. the paprika.

[FluffyBob]

Could the OP be thinking of Cheez Wiz? Ive heard quoted as a factoid (alongside the one molecule different from plastic bull) that it is grey before the addition of food colouring.

It seems pretty obvious that the orange is due to added colour, just like cheddar, which it is intended to evoke I assume. According to Wikipedia it is coloured with annatto just like Cheddar. I am willing to bet it is not really grey but an off-white.

[Bartman]

@Motorgirl

I suppose that is true. The juice you’d get from squeezing skinless Condord grapes would be clearish (generally a pale yellow) but I think we were mostly reacting to rowrrbazzle’s claim that purple coloring is added, which is untrue. The purple is from the juice process, which includes the skins.

Honestly couldn’t tell you exactly where the color is coming from. My family has always used a process like this. Wash, crush, heat, press, cool, boil and bottle. The color could be coming from the skins. The resulting juice is thick (similar in consistency to whole milk), a bit bitter, and very dark purple. Really it looks just like it does in the link above. When it is opened for consumption we usually sugar to taste and and something usually water to thin it out a bit. A lime-soda like Sprite can be used to both sweeten and thin.

[pulykamell]

[QUOTE=Quercus]
Though, come to think of it, sausage and cured meats might be something that one wouldn’t expect food coloring in, but I’m sure many do have some various colorings (traditional or not). For instance, Spanish sobrassada is a traditional sausage that contains enough paprika to change the color, and on the other end, many hot dogs have some red food coloring.
[/QUOTE]

A lot of sausages have a red or reddish brown hue to them due to the presence of nitrates or nitrites in the curing process. Sausages cured without either of these come out a dull brown or gray. Same thing with corned beef. Beef corned in a brine solution without nitrates or nitrites comes out rather unappetizing looking brown-gray rather than the bright red we’re used to. (It’ll still taste good, though.) Also, the smoking process can add a reddish hue to sausages.

[jz78817]

@Bartman

Honestly couldn’t tell you exactly where the color is coming from. My family has always used a process like this. Wash, crush, heat, press, cool, boil and bottle. The color could be coming from the skins. The resulting juice is thick (similar in consistency to whole milk), a bit bitter, and very dark purple. Really it looks just like it does in the link above. When it is opened for consumption we usually sugar to taste and and something usually water to thin it out a bit. A lime-soda like Sprite can be used to both sweeten and thin.

it’s from the skins. Concord grapes are the only ones I’ll bother eating (when I can get them) and the “pulp” is a clearish pale green/yellow. The skins are deep purple. it’s easy to see this since the skin of a concord grape slips off easily.

[Randy_Seltzer]

@Randy_Seltzer

According to last week’s SGU, ketchup is naturally brown, and cola (i.e. the flavor of normal Coke and normal Pepsi) is naturally clear/colorless. So Crystal Pepsi was just normal Pepsi without without the normally added coloring.

@psychonaut

No it wasn’t. The ingredients (not to mention the taste) were different. For one thing, Pepsi has caffeine and Crystal Pepsi didn’t.

I’d be interested in a cite for the fact that Crystal Pepsi had different ingredients than caffeine-free Pepsi.

According to the podcast mentioned in my above post, Crystal Pepsi was essentially normal Pepsi without added coloring. This topic arose in the context of a conversation about how visual cues affect flavor. Various experimental methods all point to the fact that visual cues actually change human perception of flavor. Identical foods served with different flavorless colorings will consistently have their flavor be described differently.

So yes, according to the podcast, the flavor would have been different. But primarily because of the appearance of the food, not because of different ingredients. If you’ve got evidence there were different ingredients, that would be fascinating.

[DrDeth]

The caramel, added mostly for coloring, did effect the taste a bit. I dunno if it had caffeine or not, but if not, it’d be a little less bitter.

However, I’d guess that in a blind taste test, most would not be able to tell one from the other.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@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)

The pungency is increased by being finely ground to a powder. Grated wasabi is noticeably piquant, but it’s not going to set your head on fire.

Also, wasabi is naturally green. You can debate whether it’s pale green or light green, but it’s certainly green.

[Red_Stilettos]

The color of whole chickens (well, their skin)can be changed by modifying their diet. Perdue profited off of this by feeding their birds marigold flowers. The beta-carotene turned the skin yellow which Perdue then claimed to be the mark of a healthy chicken. “You don’t want to feed your family a pale chicken!”

I’ve heard that you can also turn their skin “black” by changing their diet, presumably by feeding lots of melanin. However, I’ve never seen proof of this claim.

[pulykamell]

@Red_Stilettos

The color of whole chickens (well, their skin)can be changed by modifying their diet. Perdue profited off of this by feeding their birds marigold flowers. The beta-carotene turned the skin yellow which Perdue then claimed to be the mark of a healthy chicken. “You don’t want to feed your family a pale chicken!”

I’ve heard that you can also turn their skin “black” by changing their diet, presumably by feeding lots of melanin. However, I’ve never seen proof of this claim.

Here you go. Just google image search “black chicken” and you’ll see plenty of examples.

[Red_Stilettos]

@pulykamell

Here you go. Just google image search “black chicken” and you’ll see plenty of examples.

Not exactly. Those chickens are genetically black. You don’t have to feed them anything special to get that color. The claim I’ve heard is that you can take a standard white-skinned chicken and turn it black just by modifying the diet. I haven’t seen any proof of that, though the folks that told me about it work with poultry, so perhaps…

[pulykamell]

@Red_Stilettos

Not exactly. Those chickens are genetically black. You don’t have to feed them anything special to get that color. The claim I’ve heard is that you can take a standard white-skinned chicken and turn it black just by modifying the diet. I haven’t seen any proof of that, though the folks that told me about it work with poultry, so perhaps…

Ah. Misunderstood what you were saying. I don’t know anything about feeding chickens melanin or whether it would have the same effect as being genetically predisposed to having a lot of melanin.

[Cub_Mistress]

@typoink

To the OP, you may have been thinking of ketchup. Not so long ago, Heinz released a horribly ill-fated green ketchup “for Kids.” This would indicate pretty strongly that Heinz ketchup is processed to the point of colorlessness, and then redyed red. If their ketchup was “naturally” red, then adding that green dye would have rendered the result brownish.

I assumed that Heinz was using white, green or yellow tomatoes for the green ketchup. Here are some heirloom examples but hybrids are also available. I made spaghetti sauce once with yellow tomatoes. It tasted fine but it looked really, really weird.

[loshan]

@Happy_Lendervedder

When I was little, I always thought they dyed the pistachios red for the holidays. That was always my Christmas gift to my dad growing up, and I never paid any attention to them the rest of the year, so I just assumed it was a special “Christmas batch.”

When I was a kid, I always wondered why they made pistachio ice cream green. I mean, really, that was just weird, because obviously, pistachios were red!