Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Will MIss #350 - natural food dyes

Lunch meat in Japan is its own brand of "scary".

Many foods in Japan have common preservatives and chemicals added to them just like back home, but one thing the Japanese are careful about is food dyes. Unless a food is imported, it's quite rare to find a food that has had its color altered with chemical dyes. Most of the time, natural coloring extracted from carrots, potatoes, annatto, turmeric, paprika, etc. are used. Even the lunch meat that looks like it's a radioactive pink that is pictured with this post was made that bizarre color with beet juice.

I'll miss not seeing things like red #40 listed on my food purchases.