I'm 31 and I've never in my life seen red pistachios in the UK and I've been eating them all my life. What kind of fuck-ass pistachios did you Americans get wtf?
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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US defaultism
this is a US thing only
I'm 34 and have never heard of these.
IF you're actually curious, it was because we used to import them, and the importers would dye them red due to discoloration in how they were harvested. Domestic production ramped up in the US and since pistachios didn't have to travel as far, and because modern harvesting was more mechanized. It was easier to wash, dry, roast and salt them in a shorter time period avoiding the discoloration that required the dye in the first place.
So is a US defaultism kinda thing huh
So if in the 80s I lived in an area that didn't import them already, say, Fresno, the joke would go over my head? Because I sure as hell don't remember red pistachios
Similiar reason cheddar is orange. Cheesemakers used to die it to cover inconsistences in quality or rot.
At this point, cheddar is almost perfectly homogenous, but people expect it to be orange, so its orange.
At least they use natural ingredients to make it yellow and not red #5.
What is it's natural color? I know there is a white cheddar. Is that just undyed cheddar or is it a different variety?
Pale yellow. To make it orange cheddar they just add annatto for coloring.
In the same vein... Maraschino cherries aren't red, they are golden.
Those are cherries that are not yet Marachino. Light-colored cherries are used because the darker ones don't bleach enough to look good with the dye they use. Maraschino cherries are whatever color they are dyed with (usually red).
So instead of dying them back to green they chose to make them unholy abominations made with red dye that is known to give cancer? Cool.
Yeah, they should've used green dye that gives us cancer, that way they at least have their natural colour.
Wait, this is real? I thought this was a joke...
Like "Back in my day, bananas were bright purple, but that breed died out."
Nope. It's real. I was actually thinking about this the other day and just "wondered". Probably got busy with work and forgot to Google it and then this. I remembered them being red when I was a kid. Now I know why.
I also thought this was a joke until I read the comments. Pistachios have always been pistachio coloured in the rest of the world.
There's something very American about drowning a perfectly healthy natural product in brightly coloured dye.
Iran died them before export. Not Americans.
Presumably at their request, or at least their approval, since it doesn’t seem to be a thing in any other country. Most products in the US are imported, don’t pass the buck. “Iran forced it on us” goes against absolutely everything else we know about US consumers.
Know your customer
many different kinds of bananas and plantains
and even the "original banana-flavour"-banana is still around, the kind is called "grand michel" and can still be bought, but is no longer suitable for mass farming (due to some fungi/bacteria vulnerability)
I also figured this was just a "let's screw with the youth"-type post. We used to eat pistachios all the time when I was a kid (I'm 35) and I don't think I've ever seen a red one before today. They were always beige/greenish.
We over-60s remember when pistachios were red, airplane security was non-existent and everywhere smelled like cigarettes.
I'm two decades younger and remember all that except red pistachios. And my family used to eat a lot of pistachios.
...i can remember watching the apollo-soyuz flight and i remember old people eating red pistachios; i also remember loose tobacco shops in every shopping mall and used to show up at the airport five minutes before my flight and waltz onto the plane without issue...
Hey, I'm not even 40 and I remember getting to check out the cockpit of a plane multiple times. And the brown glass ashtrays at McDonalds.
I'm also 35, and I remember the red ones. But my mom ate a lot of pistachios and sunflower seeds when she quit smoking in the mid 90s
Now smoking is much more financially responsible than eating pistachios
Where? In EU and Australia at least tobacco is taxed to high heaven and costs like 10+ western money units (take whichever, dollar or euro, still roughly applies) a pack/pouch
I pay 14.30€ for a 30g pouch of rolling tobacco. And it's probably more expensive the next time I buy because the pack before that was 13.50€. There's a few price-hikes every year.
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It's absolutely real; there's a joke about it in The Naked Gun.
It's not that there used to be a red variety of pistashio, they were sold coated in this oily red gunk that would stain your fingers pink. That stopped at some point in the late 90's early 2000s.
There are still some dark purple bananas out there. They are usually less than 1/2 the size of a normal (cavendish?) banana. They don't taste as good to me but many people love them.
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I see, so that's why they have never been red outside the US
Yes it has and currently is
https://www.bulkbarn.ca/en/Products/All/Mediterranean-Red-Pistachios-Dry-Roasted-and-Salt
Youre all just looking to hate on someone
I don’t think that someone not having seen a thing means that they hate it.
Ok that makes sense because I (a 30+ yo canadian) was so confused.
Youre not paying attention like most in here. Or are just looking for another reason to hate on "the others"
https://www.bulkbarn.ca/en/Products/All/Mediterranean-Red-Pistachios-Dry-Roasted-and-Salt
Red pistacios still available in canada right now
I don’t think that someone not having seen a thing means that they hate it.
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Was this a regional thing? In my memory, they were all dyed green.
Pistachios are native to Iran, and until the 1970s Iran was the world's largest exporter. They dyed their exports with a food safe red.
They were dyed because they were hand picked and oils from the pickers hand would cause discoloration. The red dye covered that up.
Machine harvested pistachios didn't have that problem.
The shell of the pistachio is naturally a beige color, but it may be dyed red or green in commercial pistachios. Originally, dye was applied to hide stains on the shells caused when the nuts were picked by hand.[51] In the 21st century, most pistachios are harvested by machine and the shells remain unstained.[51] Wikipedia
I found this great place that dyes it with garlic
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We used to get the red ones around Christmas. I just thought they were decorative for the holidays, like Hersey's kisses changed to Christmas color wrapping
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