Why do food colours matter? From red to yellow to blue, it must look as good as it tastes

You know you have said it. We all have. “Mmm, that looks so delicious – I want to try some!” That is because, when it comes to what we eat, it is not just a matter of taste. What foods and drinks look like – the colours we see before the first morsels or sips hit our taste buds – has mattered to people for millennia. And nowhere has that been more blatant than the American food palate, where the visual spectrum we choose from includes not only the primary colours but artificial ones that nature could not even dream up. For well over a century, food manufacturers in the United States have used synthetic dyes in their products as part of their production and marketing efforts. Often, it has been in hopes of making a mass-produced food look as fresh and natural as possible, reminiscent of the raw ingredients used in its production. In other cases, it has been about making an item look interesting or distinctive from competitors, like candies or desserts in an electric blue or neon pink. Think “blue raspberry Slurpee” – an icy sweet drink – or a packet of crunchy “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos”. It has not been without controversy. Over the decades, there have been pushback and government regulation over just how food and drink have been coloured, most recently with the decision last month from the US Food and Drug Administration to ban red dye No. 3 from foods and oral-ingested drugs because of concerns over a possible cancer risk. But no one is calling for food not to be colourful. That is because there is no escaping the importance of what we see when it comes to what we eat, says Devina Wadhera, faculty associate at the college of integrative sciences and arts of Arizona State University, in the US. “Your first sensory contact, if your eyes are open, is going to be sight,” she says. “That’s going to be the first judgment we’re going to make.” The food manufacturers of the late 19th century knew they had to get the visual appeal right. It was part of their marketing, as a shorthand to encourage brand recognition, to make consumers feel comfortable about quality and overcome worries – or realities – about spoilage as food production became industrialised, says Ai Hisano, author of Visualizing Taste: How Business Changed the Look of What You Eat. Synthetic dyes helped overcome problems like foods losing colour in the production process and helped make foods look more “natural”, she says. Then, over time, dyes were deployed to make foods look “fun” and appealing to audiences like young children. That does not mean manufacturers did not sometimes use colourants that could even be deadly – hence the reason there is regulation. Colour is one of those things that we have this tendency to learn about different flavour pairings. Ai Hisano, author She pointed to the mid-20th century example of cake mixes, which reduced the amount of effort required to bake a cake at home because most of the ingredients were already included. Food companies began promoting colourful icing for the cakes as a way women baking at home “could kind of present their personality even though they are making a pre-mixed cake”, Hisano says. The connections we make between colours and foods are learned, Wadhera says. “Throughout our lives, we make associations which mean things. Cake is associated with birthdays. Ice cream is associated with parties and good times, so everything is associative learning. “Colour is one of those things that we have this tendency to learn about different flavour pairings.” She gave the example of products like chips and other snacks that are marketed as having an extra kick. Often, “they’re super red because [companies are] trying to say, ‘Hey, this is going to be spicy’ because they’re trying to get to this sensation or perception that this is going to be really spicy – buy it”. The connections that we make between colour and taste can also change according to the context, says Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, in England. A blue liquid in a plastic cup in a bathroom? Could be minty mouthwash. The exact same colour liquid, in a bar, held in a glass? Could be bitter gin. With colour you can manipulate and affect judgments Devina Wadhera, Arizona State University Different cultures around the world also have different colour associations, he says, although it is fairly constant across geographies that the more vivid a colour is, the more intense people assume the flavour will be. It can even extend past the food itself to the colours involved in its presentation, Wadhera says, pointing to research showing people eating different amounts or preferring certain foods linked to the colours of the dishes used to serve them. And much of the time, she says, people are not necessarily aware they are doing it. “There’s a lot of things with colour that you can manipulate and affect judgments,” she says. “You don’t think of it, though … we make automatic judgments on the food and we don’t even realise it.”

Why do food colours matter? From red to yellow to blue, it must look as good as it tastes

Bright red spicy crisps. A cool blue gin. Pink strawberry ice cream. Why the colour of your food matters more than you may think