Showing posts with label Blue Raspberry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Raspberry. Show all posts

Jun 15, 2012

Blue Raspberry

Do you know why some candy makers color their concoctions? Cherry, strawberry, raspberry and watermelon all lend themselves to the color red, and if any two of those flavors were in the same pack, they had to be distinguishable by color.

At first, the problem was solved by making cherry and strawberry slightly different shades of red. Watermelon pops were often made a lighter pink-red, and raspberry ones a dark wine-red. Scientists soon found out, though, that the most inexpensive and widely available dye for this deep red, Amaranth, or Red No. 2, provoked severe reactions, and was deemed a possible carcinogen and banned by the FDA.

The ice pop folks had access to blue dye, but no flavors that needed it. It was just an extra color sitting around, so they started to marry the flavor of  blue raspberry, with the bright blue synthetic food coloring Brilliant Blue, or Blue No. 1).

Blue raspberry flavor is a now common flavoring for candy, snack foods, sweet syrups and soft drinks. It is more often used in the United States and originates from Rubus leucodermis, or Blue Raspberry for the blue-black color of its fruit. This species is also related to the black raspberry. Of course, all of this has nothing to do with giving someone the raspberries, which term, by the way, is used over much of the globe or a Bronx cheer as many in the US call it.