Why are some pistachios dyed red?
In their natural state, the shells of pistachios are tan. In the 1930s, however, pistachio importers began dyeing the shells red to make their product distinctive to customers, and to disguise blemishes that occurred during harvesting. In general, imported pistachios are dyed; those grown in California are usually sold with tan shells, but some are still dyed to meet the demand of customers who either prefer pistachios that way or wouldn’t recognize them in their natural state.
The above was cribbed from a Chef Kane. I’m unable to relocate the link though.
Short answer:
That red dye was originally used becuase undyed pistacio shells tend to stain and do not appear very appetizing. The non-dyed nuts are instead coated with a mixture of salt and cornstarch to hide the stains. BTW: I’ve also seen green-dyed pistacios around the Christmas holidays.
“Age is mind over matter; if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” -Leroy “Satchel” Paige
According to the guy who wrote the imponderable books (David Feldman, I think) He says that pistacios (my fav) were dyed red when they were first put in candy machines. Seems once they were dyed they begain to seriously compete with sweet tarts and bubble gum. This is mainly an east coast thing. He notes out west you see the tan ones out east they are dyed red as that was the color they were when they caught on.
the question we should be asking…WHY THE HELL ARE THEY DAMN EXPENSIVE?
The price of pistachios is driven by the same marketing forces as any other commodity:
Supply and demand.
Voted as: The poster you’d most like to meet.
I demand a recount.
My curiosity has indeed been feed. Thanks for all the nutty answers.
Well, you all seem to have a more confident answer than I do but I’ll report my probably incorrect information anyway:
My mother went to a seminar given by the U.S. Customs folks a while back as part of her job. While there, the customs agent mentioned, as a bit of trivia, that pistachios are dyed the color they are in order to determine their country of origin.
Take it or leave it.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
So how come they got spelled and pronounced that way. I see that, in Italian, the word was ‘pistacchio’, which gives you a ‘k’ sound (though originally, round about, from the Persian pistah). And aren’t they associated with green ice cream? What do they dye the ice cream with and why?
Ray (Do we say ‘Nuts!’ because we’re pistah-fed?)
From WWWebster:
Pistachio ice cream is green because the nut meat is green. (duh)
For more than you could possibly want to know about the things, visit the California Pistachio Commission’s website at: http://www.pistachios.org/
And for a picture of pistachio’s on the tree, see: http://www.pistachios.org/html/cluster.html . Note the color of the nuts, a mottled red/white.
According to the site, the nuts were painted red to attract attention, and to hide stains left from ‘antiquated harvesting techniques’. Now, California harvesters have “invested millions of dollars in equipment to process [their] pistachios quickly to avoid staining and sell the nuts in their natural shells.”
I’d heard long ago that they dyed the nuts red to disguise the green color – the public to which they were first introduced assumed that green meant unripe. It seems logical, but it conflicts with the Calif. Pistachio Board’s info, and I can’t seem to find a cite. 
I did find a reference to imported nuts being dyed, but it was because of the continued use of blemish-inducing harvest techniques over there rather than to indicate origin.
CPB: 1
Customs agent: 0
Sure, I’m all for moderation – as long as it’s not excessive.
red? Iran who used to export $$$$ of these, dyed them red so us “americans” couldn’t see the blemishes.