You may have asked yourself sometime. Why are there no blue apples ? Why have we never had the pleasure of eating blue strawberries or bananas of the same color? Nature gives us attractive fruits of intense red, orange, green or yellow, but never blue. Nor do we find this coloration in the animal world in a manner we say, frequent. Some birds, no doubt, but very few. And it is possible that fish come to your head right now, but the effect of that blue color is basically due to the way light bounces off your scales, but when we cook them and put them on our plates, none of them has of an authentic and pure blue color.
For what is this?
Matter of chemistry
We have to do first a small concretion: often call blue fruits blueberries, certain grapes, and plums, currants, blackberries ... but the coloring is slightly purple, approaching the violáceo. They do not have, as the children would say, an authentic "smurf color".
We could say, perhaps, that this color seems to be "almost" vetoed in vegetables. ¿ For what reason ? Well, we know that most plants have that green coloration due to chlorophyll, but blue is a really complex pigment to get in the natural world. Whenever you see a blue flower, for example, you should know that this is due to a very-very alkaline chemistry . An unusual peculiarity, since most plants and animals have a slightly more acid metabolism.
Sometimes many plants that have blue flowers, end up turning pink or violet due to the usual acid soils from which they are nourished. It is an organic pigment, called anthocyanin , which causes, for example, our plants to turn red in a very acid medium, violet in a neutral scenario and blue if the soil is alkaline. A simple example: anthocyanin added to an acid medium will cause red roses. Antiocianina combined with an alkaline medium, will give you blue violets.
The shortage of blue pigments
There is a clear reality: blue pigments are quite complex and scarce in our nature. Hence, do not abound, for example, the blue stones (most in the form of exclusive precious stones), we do not have "blue earth", nor are there too many animals with this color. Some birds, without a doubt, and of great beauty, but not many, and if the sea animals have that slight blue coloration, it is mainly due to their skins, to which their scales scatter the light as an iridescence. That is, it is not a pigment as such. We could say, then, that this tonality has not been too successful evolutionarily.
We also have to take into account another interesting aspect, do the test to check it yourself. What would you eat before, a blue strawberry or an attractive red strawberry? It seems that at evolutionary level we have also opted more for red, yellow or green colors ... these fruits are always rich in vitamins, in antioxidants, in licópenos etc. The blue we normally leave for the field of confectionery, where we always use, of course, artificial colors.
As a last curiosity: there are chickens of the "araucana" breed that often offer striking and unique blue eggs . However, scientists tell us that this phenomenon is actually due to a retrovirus.
And now tell us Would you like to consume blue foods, do you see them attractive?
