Why does ketchup come in different colors?
I think by now most of us know ketchup (or is it catsup?) is derived primarily from tomatoes – which are typically red in their most edible form. Now you can buy it in blue or green. Why? Ketchup was always red when I was growing up. What’s better about it being blue? Does that make it more fun? Frankly, it frightens me.
What is even more scary is how much money the ketchup companies probably spent to survey and conduct focus-group studies on what would make ketchup more hip to the young ones. Isn’t that usually what makes things change ... trying to appeal to a new generation? The rest of us are fine and dandy with red ketchup. I shudder when I think what could happen to salsa when red becomes passé.
Food in general continues to move toward processed and packaged, all in the name of convenience for consumers and lower costs to produce for the companies. Food manufacturers can sell more if they’re shipped all across the world, can be displayed easily on a shelf and appeal to our sense of urgent gotta-have-it-nowness. Witness the ubiquitousness of the microwave and the food items modified especially for it (popcorn, bacon, frozen foods).
Remember when condiments such as ketchup and mustard, syrup, jelly and juice always came in glass bottles? I bet it was a combination of convenience (no more knives or spoons sullied in the name of spreading!), cost (plastic is easier to recycle and costs less to produce!) and safety (no more shattered bottles on the unforgiving kitchen floor ... plastic bounces!) that heralded the change.
Other innovations:
1. Finally, a ketchup bottle that actually sits upside down in the fridge so you don’t have to wait for the last little glump of red (blue or green) goodness to hit your burger (or other worthy target).
2. Many bottles, including ketchup, also offer a gunk-free opening to prevent, well, gunk from building up around the bottle’s mouth.
3. Squeezable packaging. This is getting a little out of hand with squeezable yogurt (Gogurt™), peanut butter (“squeeze the Skippy® it’s the Skippy® you squeeze!”), butter (this has been around for awhile), jelly (look out!) and whatever else. If I wanted to eat like an astronaut, I’d fly to the moon.
4. Portable eating. I first noticed this trend with cereal bars, which you can now buy with a solid milk-like substance inside them. Don’t know about you, but I’ve never been in such a hurry to get to work that I don’t have time to fill a bowl with cereal, pour milk on it and eat it with a spoon. Call me crazy! The latest trend I’ve noticed involves ready-to-drink yogurt smoothies with names that attempt to evoke healthy living but bring on nausea instead (Nourische™).
5. Convenience. This one’s not a new breakthrough, but it still bothers me: they sell peanut butter with jelly already mixed in. This must be for people too hurried or too lazy to open two jars to make a pbj. I wonder when they’ll sell loaves of bread with the peanut butter and jelly already on them. Should be any day now.
The granddaddy of convenience food is the frozen dinner (or "TV dinner"). It’s been around for a long long time and offers one-stop noshing in a single handy box. What the box doesn’t tell you is that the turkey and gravy will get tongue-charring hot while the mashed potatoes remain tundra cold. And the peas? Well, they usually explode into a little green paintballs all over the inside of your microwave (somehow escaping the plastic covering). The requisite cobbler or “pie” will become a gluelike substance that renders the mushy unidentifiable fruit and rubber crust a new element on the periodic table (and sadly for you, the dinner table).
Fast food establishments are always looking for ways to give us food faster, more efficiently and more cheaply. Look at the package for the salads they sell, and see how the croutons, bacon bits, dressing and fork fit neatly into a plastic bowl that they’ll hand you out the drive-thru window. Adult Happy Meals for the frazzled. Next window please!
We walk a fine line between improved medical care that helps us live longer, more fulfilling lives and the fact that what we put in our bodies is increasingly processed, packaged and injected with chemicals.
Sugar, which by the time most of us eat it, is refined to remove bugs and leaves, is mostly natural. But not everyone can eat sugar so there have been and continue to be substitutes that are not natural, and have been shown to cause problems. Unless you are diabetic and your body cannot metabolize sugar, I recommend good ol’ moderation. Don’t eat too much real sugar, and you’ll be fine. Can’t say that about the substitutes because their longterm effects remain unknown. Unless you’re a lab mouse ... we know what happens then.
We can’t all be farmers, growing our own produce, harvesting our own eggs, slaughtering our own cattle, catching our own fish and making everything from scratch. But we can at least be aware of how changes in food will affect us. We are what we eat.
So glad they still sell the red ketchup for us old-timers!
I saw a bottle of "Hulk" theme green Ketchup at the grocery store. That is just wrong. But it was on the clearance shelf - because people don't want green Ketchup or becaue the movie bombed?
I am convinced that the healthiest way to eat is smaller portions of very high quality food. This is very hard to do in practice since the prevailing trend is for more food, lower quality. The difference between a grocery store tomato and a home-grown one is astounding! Of course, I also think we should drink more unpasturized dairy products, so maybe I'm a bit extreme...
The Petite Filet is lactose-intolerant, so we drink soy milk.
One benefit of living in a city - limited food buying options. I shop at the Soviet Safeway - so named because of limited stock (the choice of 5 - 8 different cereals is the norm) and the checkout lines snake through the food aisles to the back of the store.
On the rare occasion that I find myself at a Super Stop & Shop of Food Lion out in the burbs, I get disoriented and wonder how normal people make it out of there alive. You need a compass and map to find the 20 or so items on your shopping list.
So, I have been spared the blue ketchup... my only choice is red, hunt's or heinz.
As for frozen food - I think it's improved a lot over the last few years. If I'm not popping an entree into the microwave, I'm eating out at a restaurant.
When I had roommates, we'd take turns cooking. But living solo isn't conducive to making real food (esp. since I'm not fond of cooking in the first place).
OK *deep breath*
First, very sound thinking, T-Bone - you are absolutely right to be worried about this subject, so am I.
But - being non-American, I shall refrain from commenting further for fear of hurting people's feelings.
Although, what's with the yogurt in the US looking like paint? Why? What for?
You think that's weird? Convenience?
Have you seen THIS?
http://www.pbslices.com/
PB Slices, the FUNNER peanut butter!
Yes, peanut butter reconstituted into easy slices just like processed cheese food, that you just... unwrap... and set... on your bread...
no more spreading...
shoot me...
Well, thanks for the info. I had NO idea that ketchup was available in blue or green...is that a mutant alien form??
Your point about processed food is well taken. I honestly try not to eat processed food if I can. Apart from it being filled with what I call 'dead' calories, it does not satisfy hunger for any length of time. And there really is very little that can be said positively about what it can do for your health.
Recently the Pepsi Blue was released here. Apparently it is being swallowed up by youngsters. I tried it once. They can rot for all I care. Now, I hear there is a vanilla flavour???
seems like foods do somersaults when they're being marketed towards kids and busy moms. it's as if they're considered to be in the same selling category as toys. what about the spaghetti bowl that you cook by sticking it in the microwave? the ad has a latchkey kid in it.
to me it seems like it not only does children harm healthwise, but also it probably stunts the development of gustatory pleasure. like their palate is really limited. they won't learn to appreciate yummy fresh pasta with a fresh pomodoro sauce--unless by stark contrast. do your kids a favor! let them eat tasty things!
Amen! Wahoooo T-Bone!
You know....I think they should call that pb/jelly combo....peanut belly. Wouldn't that be too cute? They didn't ask me though.
I've had purple ketchup. If you close your eyes it tastes the same, but on your plate it's nearly inedible. Food isn't supposed to be purple.
There was a peanutbutter jelly combo in a jar when I was growing up. I don't know if they still make it but it would get all mushed together in the jar and pretty gross.
Why mess with good food?
wow your entry was awesome, much like a spot by Andy Rooney - hope that's a compliment as it was intended.
Thank you for addressing an issue that seriously bugs the hell out of me.
WHY? WHY? WHY?
That's all I want to know, too.
I feel like such a dorky old person sometimes. The kids don't even question it. They think it's cool. They probably don't even stop to think it is against the laws of nature.
When the purple first came out, I had to avert my eyes when I gave it to the kids I babysit. It made me ill to even think about it.
I love the plastic upside-down ketchup bottle! That being said, that peanut butter/jelly mixture makes me cringe (of course, you know I hate peanut butter and jelly, but I can handle looking at a plain peanut butter jar!)
Down with Ketchup. DOWN I SAY!
Roommate conspiracy.
My old roommate used to purchase funny shades of ketchup on purpose because he knew it freeked the rest of us out and we wouldn't touch it. The jerk.
I did a paper on that once. about how they food industry was feeding (pun intended) on working moms and latch key kids. Make food fun! YAY! Then sit them in front of a video game or a TV set for 24 hours. See the kid explode like one of those dinosaur sponges you put in water...
Incidentially, have you tried the green choco syrup?? to dieeeee for! ;)
Ah what a profound topic. The colour of ketchup.
I'll admit it, when green ketchup first came out I bought a bottle. With my own money (and that was a big deal cause I was broke). Once I tried it tho...nope. There was something about the consistancy that just didn't fly with me. It reminded me of mustard actually. And in my fridge it sat.
Never will I eat a fry with blue Ketchup (catsup) on it! If someone serves me "blue" meatloaf it's all over!
Have you SEEN the purple?
The only thing worse than blue ketchup is blue freezepops.
Okay, that's not true. Blue freezepops are like the best kind of freezepops.
I meant blue kool-aid. No, THAT'S totally the best kool-aid too.
Wait..blue things are really good.
But blue ketchup makes me the quease.
There is also pink and blue colored margarine now, supposedly to appeal to children. Here I thought it was wrong to encourage my children to eat margarine period.
I always kinda liked blue kool-aid and freeze pops. Can't help but think of Smurf BJs.
The thought of blue or purple ketchup makes me extremely nervous. The green I can ALMOST handle - I mean, tomatoes are usually green before they're red, but it still kind of freaks me out. I try not to eat things that are colored so unnaturally - usually colors like bright blue, hot pink, turquoise, purple etc. tend to put me off a bit.
Oh, and even though I always select "yes," it NEVER remembers my personal info. :(
nasty. all of it.
that is my profound thought for the day.
I just had to comment on this...the colorful ketchups have bothered me for quite some time. Ketchup is not something you should "change" to appeal to a new generation. I couldn't get myself to eat green ketchup even if I tried. Yuk.
Oh..and your wife, even though lactose-intolerant, can drink soy milk? I'm l.i. myself and was always afraid to try it. Milk period is like poison to me *shudder*.
Pink and blue colored margarine?
*gag*
I too have pondered the sudden influx of colored ketchup. it's gross. and there are NO "flavors" of ketchup. it's just ketchup. with tomatoes. and tomatoes are red dammit!!
Have you seen the green chocolate syrup? My cousin bought that crap for her children to mix into their milk. Yeah. So they could have. Green. Milk. Very natural, yes?
As long as we're on the topic of strange colored ketchup, the mysterious "they" have now come out with something called "funky fries." You get french (whoops, I mean "freedom" fries) in chocolate and cinnamon sugar flavors, as well as some strange blue ones. They were giving the cinnamon sugar ones away for free once, so we tried them.
Don't. Don't do it. Not even for free.
Last weekend in the Sunday paper's coupon section there was a coupon for PBJ's with no crust - break crimped together with PBJ inside.
So, there it is for you. PBJ's already made and selling just like that!
Busy mom or not...I'm not going to buy them! Peanut butter belongs in one jar .... jelly in the other!