Gibber-gabber
What you SEE is what you TASTE
Milo Plurnbottom 2008-02-16 21:27:24 UTC

What does red taste like? Is yellow sweet like a banana or sour like a lemon? Would you eat green french fries?

For most people the color of food is an obvious basis for whether we want to eat a particular food or dish.
Some people are more adverse to certain colors than others. Green or blue food that are not vegetables or fruit are
anathema to some (and sometime even when they are fruits or vegetables). While other individuals are overjoyed
to drink down a fruit drink the color of windshield wiper fluid. But what exactly is the effect of food color
to the taste?

Both scientists and food marketers are interested in finding out the exact relation between food color and
taste and many researchers have attempted to figure out this fascinating correlation. In one recent study you
might be surprised how much you are seeing the difference between variously colored foods as opposed to tasting it.

The Journal of Consumer Research conducted a study, Taste Perception: More than Meets the Tongue.

Among various experiments, the researchers used orange juice to test our perceptions.

They provided name brand and bargain store brand orange juice in clearly labeled cups, and discovered that
while the brand choice did have some effect on the initial choice, there was very little effect on how the
participants perceieved the taste of the orange juice.

On the other hand…

Given two cups of the same Tropicana orange juice, with one cup darkened with food coloring, the members of the researcher’s sample group perceived differences in taste that did not exist. However, when given two cups of orange juice that were the same color, with one cup sweetened with sugar, the same people failed to perceive taste differences.

Basically the color of the orange juice had a much larger impact on taste perception than actual taste differences.

In the 1970’s researchers performed an experiment where they died a steak and french fries to blue and green
respectively. They then used a specially tinted light to make the meal appear normal in color.

All participants thought the steak and fries tasted fine as long as the tinted light was on. But part way through
eating the researchers turned on normal lighting revealing the blue and green food, and suddenly the food tasted awful
and some people even became sick.

Humans have alway used the color of food to help determine what foods were safe to eat. But in the modern age
of unlocking the inner workings of the human mind, marketers are taking this knowledge of food color and taste
to new levels of increased sales. The more we come to understand the human psyche the more we learn how to
effectively sell each other things. And yet, I think I might be more inclined to have my food in their natural colors.

This article is mostly based on a blog post at colourlovers.com entitled, “Is Visual Taste Perception Coloring Your Appetite?”
You can access the full study, Taste Perception: More than Meets the Tongue here .
Get more information about french fries in this excerpt from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.