Comment by kstrauser
Comment by kstrauser 3 days ago
Other than bakery items, what foods do you regularly eat that depend on having a specific color? I don't see how that's anything other than a marketing tool to make them stand out on store shelves. When you order something in a restaurant, you typically don't even know what their version will look like until it gets to your table. I've never, not once, added dyes to home cooking outside of cake icings and things like that.
There've been ridiculous attempts to get rid of perfectly innocent flavor enhancers before, like the fight against MSG. Take out MSG, and food tastes less good. But take out a borderline red dye, and what's the worst that happens? Factories have to sell soda that's slightly less pretty in the bottle?
> what foods do you regularly eat that depend on having a specific color?
Probably all of them. We are super sensitive to colors.
Red meat and fish like tuna and salmon have carbon monoxide and sodium nitrate treatment just to keep them red because that's how people think they can judge quality.
> Consumers will pay up to $1 per pound more for darker colored salmon compared to salmon with lighter hues, according to research by DSM, a company that supplies pigmenting compounds to the salmon feed industry.