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My friend Johanna recently spent a week eating by color. For seven days, her food intake was dictated by the traditional optical spectrum. (Her experiment is first described here; this is the post-week recap.)
Living and digesting by ROYGBIV meant a lot of bluish-purple food, which is unfortunate and sugary. Here’s her Blue (Friday) diary:
“BLUE: the absolute worst. I had blueberries all day. And Gatorade. Dinner was this gross blue ice cream I saw at Baskin Robbins. This was so, so gross. Most people tell me they started to worry because they were feeling sick just looking at the photos. Blueberries aside, there is nothing blue that isn’t synthetic. And don’t try to argue with me here. There are 30 people that each said ‘Let me think, I know I can think of something blue for you to eat’ and I would respond with ‘No. Really. You can’t.’ Don’t say blue potatoes or blue corn chips. This was a photography project, and they do not photograph blue. I hated blue day.”
Johanna photographed everything she ate and posted the results on Flickr. I am far too finicky an eater/mediocre a photographer to participate in such an experiment, but I liked the pretty pictures. If you have any suggestions for the BIV part of the week, or any questions for Johanna, leave them in the comments.
Comments (23)
Comment
I had a kid who only ate yellow food for a couple of years. I didn’t mind so much, since she ate eggs, cheese, peaches, corn, and apples, and drank orange juice. Then she went to all white foods which drove me crazy- pasta, potatoes, rice, and cereal (thank God for appples). Luckily, school lunches forced her into more variety.
Brightly colored fruits and vegetables are the best for you, but I cannot imagine trying to fill an entire day with blue food!
posted by Miss Cellania on 8-21-2007 at 7:03 am
One of my lifelong mantras has been “Blue is not for food.” Other than blueberries (which are more purple) and blue corn there are no naturally occuring blue foods. When I see blue, I just immediately think it must taste like Windex and prove just as harmful. I won’t even eat blue M&M’s. Not that the other M&M’s get their colour by nature – it’s just that I’m neurotic like that.
posted by Allison on 8-21-2007 at 7:25 am
I’ve always been anti-blue food as well. Knowing this, a girl I knew years ago saved all of her blue m&m’s for many months and gave them to me on my birthday. Of course I gave them right back to her . . .
Any time I see blue food I think a la Homer: “Mmmmm . . . food coloring.”
posted by EV on 8-21-2007 at 8:13 am
I don’t eat blue food either yuk! blue chips look moldy to me
posted by Melinda on 8-21-2007 at 1:14 pm
Well, your anti-blue sentiments are scientifically explained. Apparently, anything blue in nature (wierd plants, berries and frogs I suppose)is poisonous to us. So our natural instincs (yep, we still have those) tell us that blue = bad.
Tah-dah!
posted by Marika on 8-21-2007 at 2:02 pm
Milk photographs as blue, which is why it’s not used in food styling. So, there’s another source of blue.
Drink up your blue cow juice.
posted by Stanford on 8-21-2007 at 2:35 pm
I knew it was a good idea to check back once I started getting more-comments-than-usual! Thank you Jason :) what a great writeup, I’m putting it on my del.icio.us. See you soon xx
posted by Johanna on 8-21-2007 at 2:45 pm
Allison & EV: You can order just the blue M&Ms online from the M&M website. You can also specify any of their other colors, so you can order an assortment without ANY blue.
I’m only just starting to learn to eat healthy (that’s how come I know about getting M&Ms online), but I’m pretty sure that eating only one color a day isn’t going to end well! Don’t they say that variety is as important as moderation? I’m thinking it would be much better to try to incorporate at least three or four colors into every meal.
Yeah, I know, that’s not the point. But still. Blue for an entire day? Ewwww. Especially since this project pretty much rules out chocolate and coffee!
posted by JHaydon on 8-21-2007 at 2:55 pm
You know, I have been so frazzled today that I don’t even know if my previous comment was completely sent through. Just wanted to say thanks Jason! You did such a good writeup – couldn’t have done it better. I appreciate it :)
And yes JHaydon – no chocolate or coffee. for a week. I hated that part almost the most (mostly the coffee part).
posted by Johanna on 8-21-2007 at 3:04 pm
and the natural question is… and coming out the food color is?
posted by erin on 8-21-2007 at 4:57 pm
Boo-berry cereal is blue – if I remember correctly!
posted by Karen on 8-21-2007 at 6:26 pm
A friend of mine knew a kid who wouldn’t eat anything unless it was white or orange. Thing is, he didn’t know why he would or wouldn’t eat certain foods.. someone just happened to notice that everything he would eat was one of these two colors.
posted by scoobnut on 8-21-2007 at 8:15 pm
George Carlin did a bit on “blue food” several few years ago, explaining that there WAS no blue food. (Blueberries were purple, he explained.) He went on to theorize that blue food is the food that bestows immortality on humans, and went on to chant “We want the blue food … we want the blue food …”
posted by Sandy on 8-21-2007 at 9:32 pm
i eat by color ALL THE TIME. seriously. glad i’m not the only freak around here
posted by katie on 8-22-2007 at 10:59 am
yeah i said it
posted by katie on 8-22-2007 at 10:59 am
i used to babysit a mildly autistic boy who refused to eat anything tan or yellow. he would carry bottles of food coloring with him all the time. one of his favorite foods was oatmeal (”I like how mushy it is!”) which, unfortunatly, is tan so he would always make it blue or green. however there was a side effect to this: it would make his tounge and lips turn the same color as the food coloring.
posted by itsabecky on 8-22-2007 at 2:18 pm
I’m not autistic, but I considered dyin my food too…just for kicks.
Man, apparently, I’m wierd.
posted by Marika on 8-26-2007 at 5:50 pm
No mention of the original Sophie Calle & Paul Auster project?
Great article in the NYTimes, google Chromatic Diet….
posted by kim on 8-28-2007 at 3:07 pm
Blue Lobster – there are actually lobsters that are naturally blue toned which tastes no different than your run-of-the-mill red lobsters… and yes booberry cereal is blue as well
posted by Mike Helweg on 9-7-2007 at 7:30 am
Natural Lobsters are greenish tan, close to a brown, not red! They turn red after they are cooked>
posted by Wireless_Phil on 10-27-2007 at 4:27 pm
Blue bead lily fruit. other then blueberry this is one of the other natural blue foods it is a flower as well as a berry
posted by Sam on 1-9-2008 at 5:34 pm
I eat a completely black dish at a nice Peruvian restaurant that consist of rice, shrimp, and scallops all of which is is covered in squid ink until it is pitch black. One of the best things I have ever eaten in my life.
posted by Kevin on 2-27-2008 at 11:23 am
Johanna should be able to eat okay on purple (violet?) day. There’s purple cabbage and eggplant that you can do a lot with.
posted by Tricia on 4-13-2009 at 10:01 am