If you’re finding your morning parfait lacks color, why not drizzle it with a bright blue honey?
It’s Alive is a Greek company that farms and sells spirulina — a nutrient-dense algae often used as a dietary supplement — and a vibrant blue honey. Founder George Lignos, a chemical engineer, created it by removing the blue pigment from spirulina and mixing it into traditional Greek orange blossom honey. This dramatically alters the honey’s color, but not its taste or texture.
It’s been a hit among tourists on Crete, and has made its US debut via Laconic Foods under the label Cyano.
We love a colorful bite
While you might not have a lot of uses for honey the color of the ocean, the market for vivid foods has taken off thanks to our apparent need to share our meals to social media.
You may recall previous hype for unusual-colored food, e.g., rainbow bagels or black ice cream. Even many of the foods we think are pretty ordinarily colored are enhanced with dyes. For example, salmon isn’t pink, and cheddar cheese isn’t orange.
Our appetite for dyed foods dates back centuries, but unnatural colors became popular in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when companies began selling food coloring for home use.
Historian Ai Hisano told The Atlantic that decorated “dainty dishes” became popular first in more affluent homes and, in the 1920s, across households as dyes became cheaper — and with the introduction of Jell-O.
But…
… dyes have changed a lot over the years and now, the FDA wants to phase out petroleum-based dyes by the end of 2027.
This has led retailers, including Walmart and Kraft Heinz, to commit to removing synthetic dyes from their products.
While we could certainly eat boring-colored foods, spirulina and other ingredients like turmeric and saffron could offer us naturally-derived options. So, perhaps blue honey isn’t so odd, after all.