Weird Colored Foods

[jgarner53]

I have to agree with ladyyoung on the king's cake. It looks like a Mardi Gras reveler vomited on what otherwise might be a delicious pastry.

Blue M&M's are an abomination and a crime against nature. I refuse to eat them. Then again, last time I tasted m&m's, I didn't particularly like them. Damn this palate refinement! I also can't stomach green or purple ketchup (didn't they also do blue?), food that turns your tongue colors (like the doritos or whatever that look orange but make your mouth blue). Froot Loops do not need blue and green rings, not to mention marshmallows, and apple jacks most certainly do not need green rings.

I even have trouble with blood oranges.

When I was in college, my sorority did something called "green night" during pledging, where the weekly dinner was all green. We would usually do something like green beef stroganoff, or green macaroni & cheese. Made it really hard to eat.

[srhcb]

If you want to see something really stange, buy a (gray) bag of black & white M&M's!

I don't know what the marketing strategy is with these.

SB (doesn't like the blue ones either)

[CompassRose]

I'm weird. I like wild, crazy colours -- at least for non-food. Blue and purple candy? Oh yeah! Chocolates tinted and marbled in neon? Coooool! Condiments that look like the Scary Alarm Fluids that drip out of the bottom of my car? Sure.

And on the rare occasions that I go and get ice cream at a scoop-shop, I usually head straight for the lurid kid's colours. But I want them to taste lurid, too. I was very keen on the bizarro Shrek colours Baskin-Robbins had this year, and I have a shameful addiction to those extreme-sour candies.

It's fun, seeing how far they'll go.

On the other hand, I never did like tinted milk from junk cereals. Even as a child, on the (extremely rare) occasions that my mother bought Froot Loops or other such stuff, I'd always eat it plain and dry, with the milk (she insisted I have milk) in a glass on the side. I was fine with Strawberry Quik, but cereal-tinted milk is leachate. Or something.

[MelGold]

They ruined my Crunch Berries! My secret vice has always been Captain Crunch's Crunch Berries cereal. Now when you eat them, the "berries" turn from red & purple to blue...the milk turns blue...your tongue turns blue...your fingers even turn blue (if you're eating it dry from the box). Horrible.

[HungryChris]

After hearing a few people wax nostalgic about those red hot dogs I decided to try them. I simmered them in beer. After about 15 minutes the cooking liquid looked as if someone had slit their wrists in it. I just couldn't get past that. I'm not a fan of red hotdogs.

Cheers,

HC

[Viola da gamba]

I have to admit I have a fondness for artificial orange. I would occasionally have orange lunch: Cheetos with orange soda, followed by orange tictacs for dessert, of course. I haven't done this in a while but I feel the urge coming...

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HA HA HA HA HA - we've been referring to Cheetos, et al as "artificial orange" for years - I've never heard anyone else use the term

The only food colour I've been really put off by - so much so that I've never eaten KFC - is the weird colour of their coleslaw. I don't know if it's this way in other countries, but up here (the last time I saw it) it's some kind of processed green - looks a bit like those green scotch mints. Not, somehow, a colour I really associate with food - let alone savoury food. I also find drinking green beer - a la St Patrick's day - very odd (but will if I'm forced ...).

Blue M&M's? Really? Where have I been.

Edited February 4, 2005 by Viola da gamba (log)

[ladyyoung98]

I have to agree with ladyyoung on the king's cake. It looks like a Mardi Gras reveler vomited on what otherwise might be a delicious pastry.

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you know i hadnt thought about it like that ..but i have to agree with you.. i saw this and sat here just laughing so hard my eyes watered......

[Kris]

I don't like the blue M&M's either. I prefer the old tan ones. I think the color blue has very limited use when it comes to food (blueberries are an exception).

I don't like the appearance of Baba Ghanoush either or the coconut-pecan icing used for German Chocolate Cake. They both look nauseating to me.

[Jambalyle]

I don't like the blue M&M's either. 

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Seems like there are a lot of people who don't eat blue m&m's...

I have a co-worker who eats all the blue m&m's first before moving on to the other colors in the bag. He claims they taste better, even fresher!

If I didn't think a wacko would stalk him due to his blue m&m fetish, I would post his address and let the lot of you send him your unwanted blue m&m's!

[Arianna]

I kind of like when things are weird colors. . .

For instance, I had never even wanted to eat curry until I saw some yellow curry and it was very turmeric-y and bright. I still only really like yellow curry.

And I like blue M&Ms.

And I LOVE Cheetos, but I specifically don't even walk through that aisle in the supermarket so I won't be tempted to buy any of that crap and eat veggies instead.

[cathrynapple]

i don't like greyish brownish food. an all white meal? gross. but i like bowls of fluffy white things. buttercream frosting, and meringue. i can eat bowls of meringue.

artificial colors don't actively bother me, but there's nothing like a meal of fresh, vibrantly colored foods that are radiant on their own accord. summer veggies and things...just gorgeous.

[I_call_the_duck]

Green bagels freak me out. I know it's just food coloring, but it's scary. Says the woman who eats Cheetos but can't bring herself to eat a cheesesteak with whiz.

[Pontormo]

I once made turquiose fettuccine noodles. I wrapped them in a nest and left it on the top of the fridge for about a month, collecting dust. Looked cool, but I couldn't bring myself to eat them.

Come to think of it, most "fluorescent" colors weird me out, though I will eat them.

I love beets, but just am not thrilled when cream gets turned fuschia.

There's a hippie soup in one of the Moosewood cookbooks. I think it's called St. Cloud pea soup. It calls for a substantial amount of tumeric which turns the stuff chartreuse.

[Human Bean]

Blue M&Ms - bring 'em on, I don't care. I always thought the the overabundance of brown and tan ones was boring. I can't find a cite at the moment, but recall hearing that the creator/person in charge/somesuch of M&Ms decreed the color ratios, and insisted in the overabundance of brown/tan. Not until his demise were M&Ms able to achieve the varied colors that they have today. Given that M&Ms are inherently not a natural foodstuff, I can't be offended by un-natural colors. (BTW, green M&Ms are an aphrodisiac - please don't tell anyone, it's a secret. )

George Carlin noted many years ago that there are no blue foods. I'd be willing to try (say) blue mashed potatoes or rice or something if it made sense in a particular context; if it were blue and I didn't know what it was, I might be a bit hesitant. Blue frosting - hey, no problem. <Homer> MMM...frosting... </Homer>

Edit: add emoticon lest the naive or urban-legend-challenged get wrong ideas about green M&Ms.

Edited November 12, 2005 by Human Bean (log)

[BarbaraY]

Even though I've had several people tell me that blue potatoes are wonderful, I can't bring myself to try them. They look just too disgusting.

I never buy Cheetos but will eat them as a last resort if they are served by someone else.

[Fat Guy]

I recently had a green bagel in honor of the Jets.

No noticeable flavor difference. Just fun with food coloring.

[Mjx]

Blue and other dye colours don't bother me too much, although they sort of suggest a serious lapse of sanity, when they're found in 'real food' (as opposed to candy, and cake decorations), and given a choice, I do sort of tend to avoid them.

The colour of borscht really freaks me out, however, and only becomes worse for me when sour cream is added. I can recall a few childhood differences with an aunt of mine, over whether or not I'd eat borscht (I didn't). She loved that mangenta-ish colour in general, and often incorporated it in various crocheted things for me, which looked particularly frightful with my pallid complexion and reddish hair. Somehow, these only reinforced my aversion to most magenta food.

[gfweb]

To me how a food looks can make it appetizing or disgusting. Foams, for example, look like dog barf and ruin a dish. Likewise odd colors as with that bagel are off-putting to me.

Odd shapes don't bother me though. If that bagel had been shaped like something different, eg a foot, it wouldn't have bothered me a bit (and still would've been Jets-inspired).

[Katie Meadow]

Blue m & m's are excellent. I don't think they taste any different, but I like the look of them. Okay, let's leave candy out of the mix, since there's not much that is natural about drug store candy. And junk foods like cheetos are so artificial (good though!) that the color is probably the least worrisome thing about them. So in the case of food coloring, the color of cheetos doesn't bother me, since they look just like what they are, essentially a novelty and no pretentions to being real food. Old fashioned Maraschino cherries are borderline. They are not pretending to be anything BUT food coloring, but they are so toxic looking they might as well be radioactive.

What I object to about food coloring is when it is used to fool you into thinking something is real. Yellow cheddar boxed mac & cheese looks awful to me. And white cheddar boxed same may look more real but doesn't taste any more real. Love beets (in all colors.) I haven't used jarred borsht in many years. Does it have food coloring in it? I guess it must. Home made doesn't have quite that magenta look. I do agree that the jarred stuff looks pretty sick when the sour cream gets mixed in. I prefer leaving the sour cream in a lump rather than mixing it in. Partly because I like the taste/texture contrast, but also because I do agree, that pepto pink color doesn't always work for me. The deep red of real beets is a beautiful thing.

What's really creepy are foods that are not only colored, but shaped to look like something they are not. Take marzipan, for instance. Really good marzipan is dreamy. Humble little marzipan potato with a dusting of cocoa, yeah! But once, when I was in the hospital, someone brought me marzipan that was made to look like a salami sandwich. I couldn't get myself to take even one bite. Just looking at it was enough to make my tastebuds go haywire.

If that green bagel was an onion bagel and smelled like onions I would eat it. If I was hungry. I think the onion would win out over the green.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Katie Meadow (log)

[Kouign Aman]

For this reason, we grow purple carrots, green/yellow/striped/brown tomatoes, multicolored corn purple potatoes, and buy red, white, black/purple rices.

I've got too many friends who are locked into single flavor/color combos and cant eat variations on the theme.

Pale lilac mashed potatoes are fun. Really fun is purple-potato salad. But no one eats it!

Cant STAND blue food. Makes me laugh. Will scrape the blue off the cake frosting. No logic to it at all.

[Pierogi]

I recently had a green bagel in honor of the Jets.

No noticeable flavor difference. Just fun with food coloring.

Back in the day, my high school service clubs used to sell green bagels on St. Patrick's Day as a fundraiser. Bearing in mind this was the early 70's in suburbia...

They were pretty lame bagels.

In college we all graduated to green beers.

[technophile50]

I made a frittata a few weeks ago with a whole 1 lb bag of spinach. I sauteed onions, mushrooms, and the spinach, added some flour & masa to make a roux, mixed in the yolks, then folded in the whipped whites and cooked it in a skillet over low heat. It turned out emerald green, but tasted great - I wish I had taken some pics. Green eggs and ham, anyone? (I actually had some turkey sausage with it.)