"we lack an automatic appetite response to blue. Some diet plans even suggest the use of blue plates to help you eat less." Sofie Sobrero
Or a blue light in the fridge. Indeed looking at these blue corn tortillas, you'd have to say they don't look appetising do they?
Why blue? Don't know really. Feeling a bit blue perhaps - well this COVID thing is boring really isn't it? At least if you allow it to be I suppose and every now and then I guess we all allow it to be boring. Today is one of those days.
And why anyway is blue the colour associated with depression and sadness? I mean some of the most beautiful things in nature - the sky and the sea - are blue. Our planet as seen from space is astoundingly beautiful and blue. It seems there are a number of potential reasons ranging from Zeus making it rain when he felt sad, through Chaucer saying "with tears blue and a wounded heart" to a nautical tradition that flies blue flags and paints a blue line round the ship when one of the officers dies at sea. So no easy answer there. And besides blue, particularly when it comes to interior decor is associated with calm and tranquility.
Blue food does seem to induce more repulsion than attraction though. Well.
"There’s an evolutionary reason why blue may be the odd man out. It has to do with the fact that blue light is among the highest energy wavelengths in the visible light spectrum. Some posit that, in order to grow more efficiently, plants absorb that light and use the energy, where they might otherwise be reflecting the light (and we would see blue)." Chris Gunter
I did see various other scientific reasons - scientists look into just about everything do they not? However, I'm not sure how convincing they are because apparently there is an Instagram fad - well back in 2018 anyway - for blue breakfast bowls and blue smoothies, which were obtained by a product called Blue Majik. Blue Majik is a powdered extract derived from spirulina which is basically blue-green algae. It sells for an eye-watering $62.00 for 50g and I don't know whether that is American or Australian dollars. If it's American then it costs even more. Honestly who gets suckered into these things?
There are endless health claims made for it of course, and apparently there is some truth to some of it, although you can also buy spirulina at a smaller cost. There are also side effects that include nausea, diarrhoea and fatigue and virtually all of the articles that I read on the subject said you should consult your doctor before using it. I'm not even sure it tastes that great - one lady - I think she was a nutritionist - said:
"The taste of Blue Majik is 'kinda funky,' It’s a bit like seaweed but with more sulfur. That’s why it’s good to mix it into smoothies with a lot of fruit to help mask any overpowering flavors." Christy Brissette
Obviously somebody is a brilliant marketer. The real reason for its popularity it seems to me is the Instagram thing. Here are a few examples of blue things made with it.
Very pretty I guess, but I'm still not sure that they look natural enough to tempt me anyway. Maybe the smoothie or latte at the top, but not the others.
There is also a traditional Malaysian dish of blue rice, called Nasi Kerabu, which is made by infusing the rice with the flowers of the butterfly pea. And this too does not look natural does it? Most of the pictures I found had the rice being a paler blue in colour - almost a pale aqua in fact, and always served in a smooth mound and with pickles and dried things.
But that's all a digression. It came from my looking for tempting looking pictures of blue food. This is the best I could come up with. Well the stuff about Blue Majik was sort of interesting.
But back to natural blue food. There is not a lot. Blueberries you will say, but are they blue really? Well I suppose they look blue here but often they verge on being purple rather than blue.
And we all know that purple foods and blueberries in particular are super foods. This is because they contain anthocyanidins which are antioxidants and we all know we should have antioxidants in our diet, although I confess at the moment I can't quite remember why. So what else is blue? Well not a lot really and what there is is not very common. I am discounting things like blackberries and purple carrots - I mean they are indeed purple not blue. Here are pictures of a few that I found that almost everyone mentioned. And note - they are very few.
There is blue cheese, which depending on your aesthetic sense can look beautiful or repulsive. And the mould in blue cheese is not always blue either - it's often greenish or even black. I don't like blue cheese, but lots of people do. The second picture is of blue crabs, and I gather there are also other blue shellfish, but all of them change colour when cooked - mostly to a pink colour. Then there is blue corn. Some of it in the picture above is more purple than blue, but yes there is definitely some blue corn there. And that's what those tortillas at the top of the page are made from. But I don't think I have ever seen blue corn here. The last is a huge fish called lingcod, whose flesh is that bright turquoise colour you can see in its mouth. But again when it's cooked the flesh changed colour - to white I think.
So no there are not a lot of blue foods. There are a few flowers that are edible but we don't eat many of them do we? And besides there are not actually a lot of blue flowers anyway. Yes there are some, but they are still trying to breed a blue rose.
I love the colour blue. I have lots of blue clothes, even though I don't think it actually looks that good on me. And why are jeans blue? (Well traditionally anyway.) Artists love blue - Picasso had a whole blue period and there was that German art movement - the Blue Riders, and as I said, it's a favourite colour for interior designers. But when it comes to food it's more aligned with the feeling blue thing I think. It just doesn't look right. And we certainly should not be eating blue whales.
Weird.
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