Color Matters - The Amazing Science of Color

Science Projects - FAQs

Color and Heat Absorption
Does the color of water affect its evaporation rate?
Is plant growth affected by light color?
Does color affect taste?

Does color affect taste?

This question pertains to the condition known as synaesthesia. For example, a color might have a "taste" associated with it.

The best answer is at this page at the Color Matters web site :
How Color Affects Taste and Smell

Here's how a student addressed a science project on this topic:
How color affects taste

Here are some other insights:

Miss Jackson
Last year a class took three bottles of identical lemon lime soda. Into one they put several drops of blue food coloring. Into another they put an identical amount of red food coloring. Into the third they put an identical amount of green food color.They let 100 students try the three sodas and asked which they liked the best. The majority said they liked the blue soda the best because they liked the blue berry flavor the best! The zinger, remember, is that they all were lemon-lime in flavor.

Kim
My 12 year old son did the same science project with vanilla pudding and most people chose the "chocolate" pudding which in reality was vanilla with food coloring....soooo color does affect the senses.

lmn
I tested 10 people: i gave em each a blue and an original cookie and had them taste each of the colors, they all said that the original one tasted better even though they were all the same thing.

CC
My daughter, age 9, did the same basic experiment. However, we used sugar dough cookie mix and mixed 7 different colors for 10 classmates to try. She thought they would all go for the black cookie, thinking that they would think it was chocolate. But the colors blue, green and red were the cookies of choice.

RR
You'd probably have better results letting them see the colors. All the colors make us think in advance of what we're going to taste. The colored applesauces might do you better, afterall we all know that M & M's taste like chocolate!

Chris Willard.
Take some common foods and shine different colored lights on them and ask people what they find appetizing when the colors of say mashed potatos turn green or blue.

JJStaple.
Good question. It is said "hunger is the best appetizer" so I would imagine that our visual purple photodetectors are the complement and match filter for green such as in salads. Discoloration of food probably was primitive threat warning system, like red sunrise for sailors, although some green apples are ripe and others are not and might evoke memory of a belly ache. Story goes that before early demonstration of fruit bowl on new color TV, engineers at RCA Sarnoff Labs switched the RGB cables. A non yellow banana would not be appetizing and a hot dog may look more appetizing with yellow or brown mustard--depending on one's taste. De gustibus non est dispudandum.

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