Which color M&M tastes best?

Actually, all M&Ms taste pretty much the same.  But it does lead to an interesting question.  What does color taste like?  Nothing, you say? You would be wrong.

Food & Color

In a survey of studies on taste perception and color, study after study confirms that the more vibrant and saturated the color of a food or drink the more flavorful we perceive it to be.  All foods that were colored were also judged to smell more appealing than the same food without color. Color also impacted participants’ ability to correctly identify the flavor of what they were consuming – if an orange flavored drink was not orange in color, only 20% of participants correctly identified the flavor.

So when your child tells you that electric-orange Kraft Mac & Cheese tastes the best, they are not completely wrong – that is, when they eat with their eyes open (which in my opinion is a much tidier way to do it.)  Although after reading this I am inspired to have a blind dinner sometime in the near future.

Food and drink companies are also very interested in the results of these experiments. It is important for companies to know how their products are perceived by consumers. Companies work very hard to make their foods and drinks the most desirable so they can sell more product. Companies are always looking for ways to make their products more appealing to consumers. If changing the color of a food or drink can sell more product, you can be sure that the company will make the change.

Which gives rise to recent concerns about the impact of artificial colorings on behavior in children. From the New York Times:

The federal government has been cracking down on artificial food dyes for more than a century in part because some early ones were not only toxic but were also sometimes used to mask filth or rot. In 1950, many children became ill after eating Halloween candy containing Orange No. 1 dye, and the F.D.A. banned it after more rigorous testing suggested that it was toxic. In 1976, the agency banned Red No. 2 because it was suspected to be carcinogenic. It was then replaced by Red No. 40.

Many of the artificial colorings used today were approved by the F.D.A. in 1931, including Blue No. 1, Yellow No. 5 and Red No. 3. Artificial dyes were developed — just as aspirin was — from coal tar, but are now made from petroleum products.

Ewww.  That’s enough to turn me off artificial colorings.  But it does remind me of a recipe I have been wanted to try for a long time… Cake icing made from avocados. It’s an all-natural frightening green which could be useful for a birthday party.

Alas, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least touch on more M&M color legends, rumors and of course, Van Halen.

Red M&Ms, The Truth About Van Halen & The Green Ones

Red M&M panic

In 1976, Red Dye No. 2 was banned because of a possible link to cancer.  Consumer panic about the color was so intense that M&Ms removed red from their lineup for 10 years despite the fact that they never contained Red Dye No. 2 in the first place.

Van Halen hates brown M&Ms.

The truth of this one is very interesting. It’s about contracts, safety and monster sets and productions for touring rock bands.  It’s not actually about David Lee Roth being an impossible Prima Donna.  I learned about it while working at Madison Square Garden and it’s a wonderful piece of trivia, best explained by DLR himself. Watch the video. It’s worth it.

Green M&Ms

So if one were, ahem, Hot for Teacher, for example, one might give them some green M&Ms. The green ones[1] were ascribed aphrodisiac powers sometime in the 1970s. Although none came from the company itself, in 2008 M&M/Mars decided to capitalize on the mysterious green ones for Valentine’s day by offering bags full of just the green ones.

There’s a lot of information here to digest.  I guess my take away is this: Food dyes are pretty nasty, but so too are white Cheetos.

Without the artificial coloring FD&C Yellow No. 6, Cheetos Crunchy Cheese Flavored Snacks would look like the shriveled larvae of a large insect. Not surprisingly, in taste tests, people derived little pleasure from eating them.

[1] As a helpful aside, Snopes.com is one of the best urban legend busters out there. It is very useful for avoiding potential embarrassment from forwarding emails guaranteeing your friends that Bill Gates will arrive at their house with a new computer shortly after they forward this very email to everyone in their contact list. Don’t be that guy. In fact, read this one right now – I have already received it once – and as tax day looms closer everyday it’s probably going to be making the rounds again.