Honolulu Lite
BACK when comedian George Carlin was funny, he did a bit about "blue food." Where's the blue food? Who's got all the blue food? The changing
color of food can give
you the bluesHe was right. Back in those days, there wasn't any blue food. And like all good comedians, his observations contained a certain element of truth. There was no blue food because food wasn't supposed to be blue. Nature didn't produce any blue food.
Carlin couldn't do that bit today because there's blue food all over the place. Blue Jell-O. Blue candy. Blue juice. Blue Popsicle. Well, come to think about it, technically none of those things are actually food. They are manufactured substances that can be ingested without substantial harm to the body. They are meant to sustain life, which is one of the basic requirements of food. The blue digestibles are more along the entertainment line.
When it comes to consuming things that are blue, I draw the line at blue M&Ms. That's because I know that despite their color, I know they are going to taste like chocolate. It doesn't matter what color an M&M is. Your body knows it's going to taste like chocolate. But when you see some other blue food-like product, you have no idea what it's supposed to taste like. What flavor is blue? I mean, the first blue products to be mass marketed were blue Windex and blue toilet bowl cleaner. It's a bit off-putting that certain Popsicles are the exact same shade of blue as 2000 Flushes toilet bowl cleaner. Your body isn't primed to want to put blue stuff in your mouth. When you see a big ol' bottle of Windex, you're brain doesn't automatically go, "Mmmmm, yummy!" At least it shouldn't.
Most blue food items are directed toward children whose brains haven't yet color coordinated edible versus non-edible substances. Manufactures think making kid food unnatural colors is cute. They don't realize the long-term psychological trauma they are creating. When these kids grow up and crash on a deserted island they are going to be in big trouble. When they find no blue food, they'll starve.
Manufacturers get a kick out of dyeing certain foods colors they shouldn't be. Heinz just announced it will sell purple ketchup. This is just plain wrong. It goes against God's plan. Tomatoes are red. Ergo, ketchup should be red. Bananas are yellow so yellow-colored food should taste like bananas. Orange food should taste like oranges. Purple food should taste like grape jelly or a decent Chianti.
The only other purple foods in the real world are those Okinawan sweet potatoes that are too expensive to buy and those enormous eggplants that are too disgusting to eat. Some poi is kind of purple. But none of those are used to flavor other foods mainly because they have no flavor themselves. The color purple is generally assumed to taste like grapes. Period.
To mess with the established color-taste order is to mess with human evolution. Color is a short cut, a survival mechanism to help us know what is safe to eat. If you start mixing up the colors of different foods, disaster results. Do we want to see kids pouring Windex on their cereal? Do we want to see people sucking on a toilet deodorizing bar thinking it's a Popsicle? Do we want to see a wino on the corner chugging a bottle of purple ketchup? It's enough to give you the blues.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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