Crunchberries and Cheetos

The New York Times is lamenting the mirthless, grey food of a world in which the fun police liberals make you eat what's good for you. The article is full of really hilarious quotes, so I encourage you to read it in full. One such gem:

As yet, natural colorings have not proven to be a good alternative. They are generally not as bright, cheap or stable as artificial colorings, which can remain vibrant for years. Natural colorings often fade within days.

Ok, first, WHY do you want food that remains vibrantly colored for years? Generally speaking, I don't want to eat something that has existed that long and hasn't changed color. The article frequently references the color of food as an essential aspect of the eating experience, citing studies linking food color to eaters' enjoyment, but never once suggests that this might have some other explanation. I'm not a scientist, but isn't it possible that we've evolved an appreciation for color in our food because that's how we learned that rocks are bad food and oranges are good? This, of course, suggests another problem with the Times article, which at no point mentions all of the foods that are already colorful and flavorful without artificial dye. (One interviewed baker is noted for using strawberry puree to color his desserts, but that is again demonstrating a process by which non-colorful foods are colored, not pointing out the obvious that maybe eating strawberries instead of strawberry-flavored artificially red popsicles or even naturally-dyed strawberry cake, might be a good idea.)

I'm against the FDA ban on artificial coloring, only because I don't think the government banning things usually works (See: Marijuana, Prohibition) and artificial dye isn't dangerous enough to warrant our best efforts like other things we've banned (See: Murder, Heroin.) I have no trouble slapping a huge tax on anything with artificial dye in it, if only to drive up the price and discourage consumption that way, but I can't imagine that would be a popular or politically feasible plan. I really think people should just stop rating the "fun" of neon-orange Cheetos and that-should-probably-be-fatal-green soda higher than the damage it does to our health and to the health of children (who really have no choice but to eat what they are fed and end up the innocent victims of our love of unnaturally bright food.)

Before I read this article I unpacked my produce box and was shrieking to my roommate about how pretty the apples, lemons, avocados, oranges, cabbage, carrots, chard and mushrooms all looked together. A rainbow of fun. 0 artificial dye. While the NYT article makes it sound like a world without artificial dye would be all grey insect-husk breakfast cereal and instant pudding that no one could know was really lemon and not vanilla, any one who has ever seen the produce section of a grocery store (or been to a farmer's market for that matter) knows this is just silly. Color IS an important part of our eating pleasure, and tricking our senses to respond to food by changing the color to make it more appealing isn't increasing our pleasure it's just increasing the number of chemically-altered corn and soy monstrosities that we're willing to consume as "food".