Artificial Food Coloring
Once again, this is a true account from a former relationship. This is also Abbey’s favorite comic, we were platonic friends for years and she met every one of my exes along the way.
This logical fallacy, often referred to as the ‘Appeal to Nature‘ is rooted in a lack of science education about what products are really made out of. Homeopathic consumers refuse to take pills made of ‘chemicals’ in a factory, and instead take ‘natural’ pills made with the exact same processes in the same kind of factory. They also forget about delicious, natural ingredients like arsenic, cyanide, and salmonella! By all accounts it doesn’t make sense. More to come on this point after a more pertinent comic next week.
This particular fear (mitigated by simply adding red food coloring to make purple, which was somehow acceptable) reminds me of my favorite icebreaker game from our Skeptics In The Pub events: “What is your irrational phobia?” There were a surprising number of entries, many of which found their way into a comic script. Abbey’s is spiders. If my nightmare last night is any indication, my phobia is forgetting to bring my merch to DragonCon. Especially if there were bears at DragonCon who were very disappointed at not getting buttons.
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We had an employee who was afraid of spiders. So of course I got a big, hairy, obviously fake Halloween spider and put it on her desk. When she screamed and leaped in the air, I said “Alison, it’s fake!”. (Between screams) “I know, I know, just get it the fuck off my desk!”
Blueberries are actually purple
Purpleberries just isn’t as catchy.
I prefer the term “Indigo” …
… but then isn’t “Purple” just somewhere between Magenta and Blue, and Indigo the same but with less Red (and optionally more Blue)?
Maybe I should get a bunch of Blueberries again some time soon and try to narrow down the hex-code for the colour.
Blueberries are a range of colors depending on the variety and how ripe the are. One of those colors, especially if the bloom (the powdery coating) is still on the berry is rather definitely blue.
Actually Blueberries aren’t “truly” blue. The pigment is purple, and can be diluted to look almost blue. The ONLY “true blue” edible plant in the world is the flowers of Borage. They have true blue pigment, not bastardised red or purple like the rest.
Here we are geeking out about the true colors of food and I’m liking it. Yep, the stain of blue berries has always left things a reddish purple no matter the variety. I have about 10 varieties between high and low bush and while the skin varies from dark navy to light sky blue, I have yet to create Bantha milk when the berry juice mixes with my cereal milk.
Friends and I had a long discussion about this one debauched party
There IS a food (of sorts) that is naturally, truly blue.
Psilocybe Cubensis
Or does eating them just make everything LOOK blue?
Trippy.
Spiders are not an irrational phobia; I have a nasty spider bite healing on my neck right now…
Do blueberries cheer up if you put them on anti-depressents?