Funky colored food....pro or con?

[Calhoun07]

I am actually curious to know about this, especially since we have such a vast cross section of people on these boards. Do you like the new funky colors of food staples that they are coming out with. Purple and green ketchup, blue and red butter? I personally think it's cool. I bought the purple ketchup and the blue butter last night and I think they taste just fine, just like the original red and yellow flavors. But most people I talk to say it's gross and they can't eat it. Why not? The taste isn't affected, and it's just COOL.

I am really looking forward to making foods with the blue butter epsecially. Now I really can have GREEN EGGS and HAM! And I wonder how cookies would turn out if made with blue butter?

[Naraht]

Right now...while I would eat it if I had some...I aint gonna shell out the extra cash for the novelty of odd colored food. I'm poooooooor! but maybe when I had the cash I'll get more creative.

[Calhoun07]

I didn't think it was that much more. I think the purple ketchup was like a $1.89 when I got it, which was just a few cents more than the regular kind. I think the price difference is just 60¢/ Of course, the regular kind does go on sale for quite a bit cheaper every other week....

[Naraht]

Originally posted by Calhoun07
I didn't think it was that much more. I think the purple ketchup was like a $1.89 when I got it, which was just a few cents more than the regular kind. I think the price difference is just 60¢/ Of course, the regular kind does go on sale for quite a bit cheaper every other week....

60¢ is almost two cokes,...I can't waste two cokes for purple..especially since I don't use ketchp enough to warrent buying it at all...(I rarely use ketchup, and when I do, I use stolen packets from Fast Food joints.)

The butter I might get though...I need to check the prices...

[Calhoun07]

I think the butter was like $1.29 or so. I really can't remember. It wasn't very expesnsive over regular butter, tho. The only thing I don't like about it is that it is squeezeable, which kinda makes it hard to measure out exact measurements to make baked goods.

But I do have an idea...one I admittedly won't try.... My dad used to eat his eggs with KETCHUP on them. Which I thought was always gross. Well, could you imagine frying eggs in blue butter, thus turning the eggs green when the yellow yolk mixes with the blue butter, and then putting purple ketchup on the green eggs? How cool would THAT be!

[Calhoun07]

Originally posted by naraht


60¢ is almost two cokes,...I can't waste two cokes for purple..

You get your cans of pop for 30¢? :confused: Dang, where I live, the pop machines run about 50¢-60¢ for one can of pop! I feel ripped off!

[Naraht]

Originally posted by Calhoun07


You get your cans of pop for 30¢? :confused: Dang, where I live, the pop machines run about 50¢-60¢ for one can of pop! I feel ripped off!

well...here @ the TV station our coke machine is 40¢ a pop (pun intended) However if you buy in bulk (ie 12 packs) the price per sode is cheaper...

[Calhoun07]

Hey, that was fun! I just made some eggs with the blue butter! The yolks turned green, but the whites stayed blue. And I had some waffles with blue butter on them! I now wish I had gotten some of the pink butter, too, cuz I'd like to mix the two together so I could have PURPLE EGGS!

[Naraht]

Originally posted by Calhoun07
Hey, that was fun! I just made some eggs with the blue butter! The yolks turned green, but the whites stayed blue. And I had some waffles with blue butter on them! I now wish I had gotten some of the pink butter, too, cuz I'd like to mix the two together so I could have PURPLE EGGS!

Nice to know it's easy to entertain you!

[Psycho Fox]

Doesn't bother me, but I wouldn't pay more for the stuff.

[Calhoun07]

Actually, I double checked the prices. The colored stuff is only 20¢ higher than the retail price on the regular stuff. That's not going to cause anybody from not making their car payment!

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Calhoun07
Actually, I double checked the prices. The colored stuff is only 20¢ higher than the retail price on the regular stuff. That's not going to cause anybody from not making their car payment! I'm poor and destitute I wouldn't be able to make my Jag payments if I have to pay 20 cents more for food. :rolleyes:

Anyway if you dyed your butter mold green how would you tell when it has gone bad?

[Calhoun07]

Originally posted by Psycho Fox
I'm poor and destitute I wouldn't be able to make my Jag payments if I have to pay 20 cents more for food. :rolleyes:

Anyway if you dyed your butter mold green how would you tell when it has gone bad?

When it starts growing it's own coat of fur.

[Maxie Zeus]

Well, I have the impression (at least from the commercials) that all these colors are aimed at kids. And I've never looked twice at the stuff in the store. Anyway, I like my spicy mustard, and I don't see Grey Poupon or whoever deciding to cater to the kiddie crowd. :D

[ccffan01]

The colors are just nasty.

[DR. BELCH]

--make my mom puke. She once watched me mix cheese eggs with leftover taco fixings--seasoned beef, tomato, onion--and commented that the finished product looked like a heap of diarrhea.

[Karkull]

I have a bottle of green ketchup in my kitchen, but I haven't used it yet (I did, however, use the free stuff from Burger King last summer...good!). I really want the purple, but I should finish my green first...

:(

What's wrong with ketchup on eggs?

[batboy2001]

I don't mind the colors, doesn't matter to me either way...

[ccffan01]

I can tolerate green ketchup but anything else is a little nasty.

[Karkull]

Originally posted by ccffan01
I can tolerate green ketchup but anything else is a little nasty.

Purple's always tasty!

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by Karkull


What's wrong with ketchup on eggs?

Tastes boring. Needs salsa or tabasco! :p

That was the makings of a fine-sounding breakfast burrito your mother was dissing, Belch. Made me hungry just reading about it.

[Deltamon]

I dig creativity (I'm an amateur furry cartoonist-of course I dig creativity!). But when it comes to food, I stick to a see-food diet; If I like what I see, I'll eat it.

Changing the color of butter or ketchup to is like an animal who show off a red marking on its body to make enemies think they're venomous or just plain unappealing. They may not be flashing red (and in ketchup's case, that'd just be redundant), but the coloring is making the food look unappealing to me just the same.

[Danielle]

Please define "funky". :p

I dunno. I'm kinda used to old, boring food. Luckily. I really feel like that mother in the blue butter commercial...

I would just like to take this time to point out that American paprika is all wrong. It's just red. Hungarian paprika is red, brown, and a whole mix of other stuff. That is good paprika. :D

[killercroc]

The next thing coming out is colored French Fries.

Which brings me to my problem with all of this stuff. It's like a product with no reason to exist. As cheesy as it was even "The Clapper" had a purpose. This food was colored ostensibly in order to get kids to eat.

Ummm, I don't know any parents that have a hard time getting their kids to ketchup, french fries or butter. Possibly you could use the butter to get kinds to eat eggs fried in it or a a baked potato with it on there, but it's still unhealthy.

I just think they are irresponsible and manipulative products. I can't do anything about it except not buy them, but I don't have to like it!

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by killercroc
The next thing coming out is colored French Fries.

Which brings me to my problem with all of this stuff. It's like a product with no reason to exist.

I'm not sure I follow: The only difference between red ketchup and blue ketchup is that one is red and the other is blue. And yet there is a reason for "red" ketchup to exist but no reason for "blue" ketchup to exist? Somehow there is a point to ketchup being red, but no point in its being blue?

I dunno. It just seems to me that if the color is a matter of indifference -- aesthetically, nutritionally, etc. -- then red ketchup and blue ketchup would either be equally pointless, or equally useful.

[Failure]

The reason there's new colors is easy. More sales.

The actual object of these new colorful foods isn't exactly internal consumption, it's so kids will play with it. Does the company care if people are eating green ketchup? Not particularly, when findings are showing that kids are wasting more of their ketchup playing with it than eating it. Thus voila! More sales!

To sum it up, the new, colorful foods are targeted specifically at kids. And the message behind a lot of the advertising is: play with your food. Do anything you can to waste it, so you'll buy more when you're out.

[Calhoun07]

Originally posted by Maxie Zeus


I'm not sure I follow: The only difference between red ketchup and blue ketchup is that one is red and the other is blue. And yet there is a reason for "red" ketchup to exist but no reason for "blue" ketchup to exist? Somehow there is a point to ketchup being red, but no point in its being blue?

I dunno. It just seems to me that if the color is a matter of indifference -- aesthetically, nutritionally, etc. -- then red ketchup and blue ketchup would either be equally pointless, or equally useful.

Everybody at work I asked told me there is no way they can bring themselves to eat this stuff, and feel it absolutely disgusting. But I pointed out, as I believe Maxie did in a kind of a way here, is that the colors of each are artificial. People say the purple and green ketchup is bad for you because it has artificial coloring and therefore are staying with red ketchup. I hate to break this to ya, but if you made straight ketchup from tomatoes out of your garden, I doubt you would get it as red as Heinz gets theirs unless you used some kind of coloring.

It's like mint ice cream, which is seen as green in most instances. However, Ben and Jerrys adds no artificial coloring to their ice creams, so their mint ice cream is closer to white than it is to green. It's the same with ketchup. If you made your own with nothing artificial added, the red would be very unappealing. It would taste great, but the color would turn people off. I know, cuz my sister makes her own with tomatoes from her garden.

The coloring of this food is nothing new, it's just different. I highly doubt any of us would eat many things we do if it wasn't for the artificial colors. The colors of food instill in us some kind of emotional repsonse (as I think has been pointed out in this thread already) and for some people, different colors of ketchup and butter provoke a negative emotional response. But the people turning their nose up at it are not doing it for the taste, but for the color. But the emotional response they get from red ketchup, even tho the red is enhanced with artificial coloring and I am sure is just as "bad" for you as purple ketchup, is a postive one, and people can easilly identify with that color.

I like the new color food cuz it challenges the way people think, and that's always a good thing. That's the reason I like several of the things that I like, cuz in the end they challenge us to think differently.

By the way, my sister has also grown yellow tomatoes and has made things with that. So long before Heinz had their brilliant idea, I was trying to get used to yellow tomatoes in my food. That definately required me to think differently!

[killercroc]

Originally posted by Maxie Zeus


I'm not sure I follow: The only difference between red ketchup and blue ketchup is that one is red and the other is blue. And yet there is a reason for "red" ketchup to exist but no reason for "blue" ketchup to exist? Somehow there is a point to ketchup being red, but no point in its being blue?

I dunno. It just seems to me that if the color is a matter of indifference -- aesthetically, nutritionally, etc. -- then red ketchup and blue ketchup would either be equally pointless, or equally useful.

Well it would be kinda red without the dye, but that's not really the point, huh?

It's just that they've gone through all this trouble to produce and market this new color of ketchup and there's really no need for it. It really is one of the most pointless new products ever. Like I said it's their money and their business and they can do whatever they like with it. I guess it's just the purity of the Madison Avenue influence that repulses me.


A funny thing related to this is that my grandma told me that when Margarine first came out it was white, but had a color pouch you could mix in with it to make it yellow. I guess they thought the public might be up for a butter substitute just not a white butter substitute. but everyone knew it started out white, so what's the point?

Also, there was a Salmon canner back in the fifties canning salmon that for some reason wasn't pink. Obviously, it didn't sell as well as the pink salmon other canners were selling. The canners solution was eight words added to the can. "Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can." As my Advertising professor told me, sales skyrocketed.

[Joe Tully]

The colored food is just a marketing gimmick aimed at little kids.

That said, I love to put green ketchup on my corn dogs. Yummy! :p

I really don't care if it's a gimmick. Just about everything you buy is a gimmick, anyways. I just wanna have fun!

The butter looks weird, but I'll probably try it eventually.

[Calhoun07]

It's not really pointless. The point is to have fun with it. And what's wrong with that?

[Danielle]

Originally posted by Calhoun07
It's not really pointless. The point is to have fun with it. And what's wrong with that?


Ever wonder where the phrase "Don't play with your food" came from? :p

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by killercroc


Well it would be kinda red without the dye, but that's not really the point, huh?


Well, I'm with Calhoun in wondering what "pointlessness" has to do with it.

Look, if eating were simply a matter of nutrition, then we'd all be eating soy cakes and popping vitamin pills. But it's not. Food may be a matter of nutrition, but eating is a kind of recreation -- one that isn't a game or anything, but an activity that is supposed to be enjoyable. That is why presentation -- the use of color and texture and the layout of the food on the dish -- is such an important part of both restaurant preparation and holiday meal presentation.

A slightly off-color comparison: Someone who doesn't see the "point" of good presentation -- including the use of color -- in a meal is in danger of not seeing the "point" of sex toys in bed. ;)

[DR. BELCH]

"That's the kind of thing I would have expected from Ed."
"That's the kind of thing I really wanted to do, Eddy."

I'll have to agree with my fellow Epicurian. Ben Franklin may have said that we should eat to live and not live to eat, but they didn't have a buffet on every other corner in his day. Still, green eggs and purple grits are a bit much. If I want color on my plate, I'll eat a salad.

Though food and sex toys are not mutually exclusive, either.... >8D

[Calhoun07]

Well, green eggs and purple hamburgers may not be necessary for my well living, but they don't take away from the nutrition I am recieving if I decide to prepare such dishes with some colored condiments (and that's condiments! I am not talking about that subject Maxie brought up! ;) ) and it's not like I couldn't live without it. If tomorrow, I can't find purple ketchup and blue butter on the shelf, so be it. I prefer Country Crock to Parkay anyway! It's just fun for the novelty of it, and I am sure the makers of these new kinds of ketchup and butter realize that this is a temporary novelty that will one day over extend it's welcome on the grocer's shelves.