I also figured this was just a "let's screw with the youth"-type post. We used to eat pistachios all the time when I was a kid (I'm 35) and I don't think I've ever seen a red one before today. They were always beige/greenish.

It's absolutely real; there's a joke about it in The Naked Gun.

It's not that there used to be a red variety of pistashio, they were sold coated in this oily red gunk that would stain your fingers pink. That stopped at some point in the late 90's early 2000s.

The real answer is that yes, they were red, but no it wasn't because they were poor quality.

It's because the world's largest exporter was Iran, and Iran had a blanket policy of dying their pistachios red.

I also thought this was a joke until I read the comments. Pistachios have always been pistachio coloured in the rest of the world.

There's something very American about drowning a perfectly healthy natural product in brightly coloured dye.

Nope. It's real. I was actually thinking about this the other day and just "wondered". Probably got busy with work and forgot to Google it and then this. I remembered them being red when I was a kid. Now I know why.

There are bananas that are dark red to dark purple, those varieties barely get imported to the US. For some reason the import market is 1-variety-of-bananas-at-a-time-until-it-goes-extinct.

There are still some dark purple bananas out there. They are usually less than 1/2 the size of a normal (cavendish?) banana. They don't taste as good to me but many people love them.

many different kinds of bananas and plantains

and even the "original banana-flavour"-banana is still around, the kind is called "grand michel" and can still be bought, but is no longer suitable for mass farming (due to some fungi/bacteria vulnerability)

Ok that makes sense because I (a 30+ yo canadian) was so confused.

Yes it has and currently is

https://www.bulkbarn.ca/en/Products/All/Mediterranean-Red-Pistachios-Dry-Roasted-and-Salt

Youre all just looking to hate on someone

At least they use natural ingredients to make it yellow and not red #5.

What is it's natural color? I know there is a white cheddar. Is that just undyed cheddar or is it a different variety?

It was less about hiding rot, and more about making it appear to have a higher fat content.

Those are cherries that are not yet Marachino. Light-colored cherries are used because the darker ones don't bleach enough to look good with the dye they use. Maraschino cherries are whatever color they are dyed with (usually red).

Yeah, they should've used green dye that gives us cancer, that way they at least have their natural colour.

Holy shit you are pinning my exact experience. I grew up in Fresno CA and have never even seen a red pistachio in my life.

I hate this idea of "us defaultism" being labeled on anything that even remotely involves the US. This isnt us defaultism, this is someone from the US sharing something about the US worded to be for someone for the US. I see this numerous different times with different topics for different countries, but I don't go "oh this is German defaultism, oh this is Zimbabwean defaultism." It's a fun fact that you're taking too seriously because you have a hate boner for the US, which is honestly fair.

Another commenter said it was the oil on people's hands

Blood oxidizes to a dark brown/black pretty quickly so a red dye wouldn't really hide it.

Yes, but as technique improved, there was less blood introduced on average and the pistachios would not be evenly coloured. To preserve the impression of quality, the farms then adopted the policy of wringing the worst performing worker of each batch of their blood to cover the batch in red homogeneously. This motivated improved performance batch on batch (less blood) and eventually, two workers had to be wrung, and at some point the remaining workers got so good that no blood was introduced and a drastic policy change had to take place.

That or automation.

Warwick Davis (best known for his roles as Wicket the Ewok or Willow) told this story from when he was an extra at the pod race in Star Wars Episode 1.

He had an awesome looking cocktail and he made the fatal mistake of taking three large sips in the first take. And of course he had to repeat that action every take. And they had to do many takes. Trouble was (apart from the enormous amount of liquid) that the cocktail tasted absolutely awful. But as a professional he stuck to his role of course.

Those takes never made it into the movie. They aren't even available as cut scenes or still photos.

They were dyed because they were hand picked and oils from the pickers hand would cause discoloration. The red dye covered that up.

Machine harvested pistachios didn't have that problem.

I'm pretty sure this is a prank because I've gotten tested for colourblindness, but this is a hilarious prank.

On my phone at least I don't see a number

It’s a 7

666. Is that good? Did i get it right?

IT'S PIKACHU!

His ass

I should have included the tag, I made it up 😄