Are there blue foods out there?

Question

Are there naturally occurring foods that are blue? Not foods that have been created in a lab to be blue?

possible duplicate of [Looking for a Blue Ingredient](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/15664/looking-for-a-blue-ingredient) — Erica, Oct 28 '14 at 01:16
This is very much of a language/cultural thing. English tends to use other color words for foods which are known as "blue" elsewhere in the world. For example, "eggplant" can be called "blue tomato". — rumtscho, Oct 28 '14 at 08:35
See also: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/3410/are-there-no-naturally-blue-foods — Jolenealaska, Nov 08 '14 at 03:44
You may find [Why are so few foods blue?](https://biology.stackexchange.com/q/56476/16866) from Biology.SE helpful. — theforestecologist, May 18 '17 at 17:56

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:46

4

A few that came immediately to mind:

Blueberries
Purple potatoes (sort of blue-violet)
Blue corn (readily found in the form of corn chips)
Lobsters are blueish (until cooked when they turn bright red, so nobody thinks of them as blue)
Some edible flowers

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:46

Community

answered Oct 28 '14 at 01:16

Erica

Fair warning: The Blue/Purple potatoes turn grey when boiled. My wife still harangues me for the "brain soup" I made, unknowingly. – Grey Dog Oct 28 '14 at 01:32
Yeah, I run into that problem with most blue or purple foods -- beans, potatoes, okra, all lose much of their color when cooked. – Erica Oct 28 '14 at 01:35
and shellfish ... blue crabs and blue lobsters turn red when cooked. I once went to a talk where someone had some color-analzing tool, and determine that most "blue" foods were actually closer to purple/violet. Blue crabs were the closest to "blue" (but it's the shell, which we don't eat). – Joe Oct 28 '14 at 02:13
None of the foods you list (except perhaps for the flowers) are blue, but purple or violet. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Oct 28 '14 at 15:14
1

The flowers certainly are, but I'll grant the rest are spectrally more indigo. The OP didn't really define how strict a "blue" was needed :) – Erica Oct 28 '14 at 15:24
@GreyDog - Oddly enough, mine turned an intense, dark blue after stewing with a pot-roast a few hours, and a true blue, not a violet/purple. – RI Swamp Yankee Oct 30 '14 at 15:20

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 30 '14 at 02:51

Even if limited to foods edible to humans, a few others do come to mind, each of which occasion in true blue hues (though not necessarily always).

1.the Concord grape

2.the juniper berry (used for making gin)

3.varieties of cabbage, squash, and mushroom (from which the band Blue Oyster Cult apparently derived its name)

2 Answers2