In a 1973 experiment involving tinted food and different lighting, participants vomited after eating. But was this really the case?
Upon entering the dimly lit room, it was necessary to sit down at a table and partake of a hearty meal with a group of fellow diners. Real meat and potatoes - literally. A full plate that was loaded with steak,
potatoes and peas. Classic. People get full and it's delicious. The steak is cooked as rare as ordered. The potatoes are creamy. The peas are fresh and sweet. The person is about to take another bite when suddenly the light comes on.
The switch instantly transforms the room from what historian Joel Harold Tannenbaum describes as "unusual, a little dark" to a more normally lit room. Now diners have a chance to get a closer look at their dish. A delicious steak and potatoes has somehow turned into something horrible. "The steak is bright blue, the potatoes are green, and the peas are a disgustingly bright red color," Tannenbaum writes.
All participants, unscientifically speaking, go crazy. Some are "nervous and angry", others "feel nauseous and head straight to the restroom to return the entire contents of their plates". Now we need to find a manager to demand a refund.
But it's not a restaurant at all, it's an experiment. It takes place in the 1970s, and all the people around the table are participants in the study. The study, Tannenbaum writes, is well known, having been covered for decades in "reviewed journals and dissertations, on public radio and in media ranging from the Atlantic Monthly to the New York Times Sunday Magazine." The study focused on the perception of color in marketing and the role it plays for consumers.
However, there is no evidence that this particular experiment ever existed. As Tannenbaum notes, "it seems more likely...that the blue steak story was a combination of various stories that had been accumulating for decades."
The phantom study was first reported in an article by Jane Wheatley published in 1973 in the trade journal Marketing under the title "Using Color in Marketing." Wheatley explained the nature of the study, but gave no references. But the story was so compelling that an illustration showing "a bright blue steak, a serving of lime green fries and a scattering of red peas" was added to the article.
Wheatley's article was later quoted in a German perfume company newsletter that equated "preference for different colors to emotional inclinations." Subsequent articles either referred to the "classical study" without supporting it with anything else, or passed it off as Whitley's own research.
By the 1970s, Tannenbaum writes, "there were decades of food color experiments" and stories to confuse one with the other. One experiment, conducted in 1936, used desserts falsely colored and found that tasters had difficulty identifying their taste. During World War II, writer Shirley Jackson hosted a dinner party at which oddly colored foods were served - "blue steaks and red potatoes".
In 1959, an experiment was conducted with reconstituted dehydrated food, using light to change the colors of food. In a chronicle of the experiment, "one of the subjects is seen putting away his knife and fork in apparent disgust at the sight of a green steak". In 1970, Alfred Hitchcock claimed to have served a "whole meal of blue-colored foods" at a party.
Amidst many of these developments, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did address food coloring issues, leading to a ban on certain synthetic red and orange food dyes in 1950.
In 1956, a lemon pie manufacturer was prosecuted for using Sunset Yellow dye, which a competitor viewed as fraudulent.
"In general," Tannenbaum writes, "it seems that in the mid-twentieth century, tinted foods were strongly occupying people's minds.
Any of these variations could be the primary source of this story. Elements added in the 1970s likely caught on because they touch on themes that consumers cared about (and still care about) - "withcooking, flavor enhancement and experimental 'new cooking'."
People want to know that what they are seeing and tasting is authentic and real, and whether that desire is related to the "mid-century trend to dye foods in 'unnatural colors" or a reaction against "food scientists (and/or marketers) behaving badly, even maliciously, at the expense of the general public," it has resonated over the years.
The legend of blue meat and red peas took on "a life of its own once it was embraced as a source by the emerging food sciences and related interdisciplinary fields," Tannenbaum writes.