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.