Why do they color cheddar

HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. All rights reserved. Foap AB via Getty Images. Does the dye in cheddar affect the flavor? Which is healthier, orange or white cheddar?

Suggest a correction. Parchment, Wax And Freezer Paper. Thanksgiving Without Turkey? Now What? Newsletter Sign Up. I just found out. It's not like it's toxic or anything, but still it was a shock. Somehow I'd always assumed the orangeyness was just a byproduct of some traditional cheese making process.

I checked my package of cheese and sure enough, it listed "colour. I felt like a rat in a maze trying to find out. First of all, I found out that in fact, not all Cheddar is orange, including most of the stuff in England , although other cheeses , like Cheshire, are.

I went to a hard core cheese store which sold only white Cheddar. Sometimes people think they can taste differences , but these are more likely the result of differences in aging or in pasteurized versus raw milk. The cheese guy I spoke to said he just preferred unadulterated cheeses on principle. Since at least the s, in those Cheddars that are orange, the colour comes from annatto or roucou , the red seeds of the achiote tree Bixa orellana native to central and south America. The Aztecs used it as body paint.

Most cheddar that is orange today is artificially colored. Cheese makers used natural sources like marigold flowers to color their cheddar, and when the cheesemaking traditions carried over to America, some farmers chose to continue this method. Although there was no longer such a high demand for orange cheese especially among New England consumers, the coloring process created a product that stood out with bright, uniform color.

To this day, the method continues. Even Kraft Foods, which colored its cheddar products artificially with chemicals, recently reverted back to using natural coloring agents. It joined the many other producers that use a red powder ground from seeds of the tropical annatto tree.

Though few and far between, there are a handful of artisan cheese makers that note a naturally occurring change in color as their cows feed from one season to the next. Getting the Alpha Amount of Beta Carotene. FAQ: Why is some cheddar cheese orange and some white?