Before grocery store shelves became a veritable rainbow of products, many foods looked very different. For most of human history, food got its color from natural plant pigments, what animals ate, and how foods were processed. That began to change in the 19th century with the rise of industrial food production as well as early synthetic dyes, many of which were derived from coal tar byproducts. Once introduced, food colorants spread quickly. They changed not only how food looked, but also what consumers came to expect. By the early 20th century, food coloring was here ...Read More