No, and the explanation is both biochemical and historical. “The dyes present in plants, whose function is to protect them, are substances that are very sensitive to light, oxygen and acidity”, says food engineer Marcelo Alexandre Prado, from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). “While the green and red pigments are more resistant, the blue one degrades quickly unless it is in an alkaline environment, which is rare in nature, as most foods have a neutral to acidic pH.”
To make life worse for the blue rangos, the man never did anything to help. It’s just that, since Prehistory, we tend to associate colors with flavors. “The human cognitive experience associates warm colors, such as red and orange, with sweet foods. Green, in turn, is associated with acidic and sour foods, such as lemon. Blue, on the other hand, refers to moldy or damaged things”, says Prado. Therefore, it may even be that, millions of years ago, there were natural blue foods, but they were left aside by our ancestors and ended up extinct. Unless, of course, you believe that those eggs sold at the corner bar are really blue.
The color blue is so discouraging to our appetite that some slimming diets even recommend the use of blue dishes to reduce hunger in foodies!
BLUE, BUT NOT MUCH
Check out a special menu of “almost” blue ranges
BLUEBERRY
Coming from North America, this little berry, known as blueberry, is perhaps the natural food whose color is closest to blue. Anthocyanins, antioxidants that fight aging, give it its peculiar purplish hue. They, incidentally, are the same substances present in high concentrations in açaí, which is also obviously purple.
BOLETO-DO-DEVIL
Boleto is the generic name for a vast family of edible fungi, with more than one hundred species. The pulp of the devil’s boletus (boletus satanas) turns blue when it is split in half and the crumb comes into contact with the air – the relationship between blue and oxidation appears there, once again.
PURPLE CABBAGE
The leaves of some types of cabbage, such as red cabbage, have a purple color, which varies from red to bluish purple. Why? It is also rich in the same pigment found in blueberries, anthocyanins.
BLUE CORN
Yet another purple food that eventually turns blue a little bit. In Mexico, there is a variety of corn whose cobs are very colorful and darker than the traditional yellow. The flour made from this unusual corn is used to make tortillas, the famous Mexican pancakes.
+ Why does corn have hair?
+ Why is the sky blue?