32, American, never seen a red pistachio
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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this is only a Posnia thing.
Yet pistachio ice cream has always been green...
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.
Wait, this is real? I thought this was a joke...
Like "Back in my day, bananas were bright purple, but that breed died out."
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.
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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.
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.
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So is a US defaultism kinda thing huh
I hate this idea of "us defaultism" being labeled on anything that even remotely involves the US. This isnt us defaultism, this is someone from the US sharing something about the US worded to be for someone for the US. I see this numerous different times with different topics for different countries, but I don't go "oh this is German defaultism, oh this is Zimbabwean defaultism." It's a fun fact that you're taking too seriously because you have a hate boner for the US, which is honestly fair.
I world disagree because vast majority of the posts from different countries are labeled so (e.g. “In Germany, we had so and so”). Posts from US are almost never labeled so, hence the “defaultism”
Okay but the guy at the start of this comment chain literally did label it
But the post didn't, which is what I think is being referred to here
That person assumed everyone would be from the US, wich is not true, hence defaultism.
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Takes me back. The Naked Gun | Red pistachios scene
I've been watching that movie for 20 years and I had never understood what he was eating and why he had red lips.
Turns out pistachios used to be dyed in the US.
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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
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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.
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?
Hey bud I've got some bad news for you.
What number do you see in this circle?
IT'S PIKACHU!
I'm pretty sure this is a prank because I've gotten tested for colourblindness, but this is a hilarious prank.
It’s a 7
On my phone at least I don't see a number
- Is that good? Did i get it right?
It's OK I ain't seen em either
When I was a kiddo in the 80s, pistachios and other shelled nuts were commonly a winter holiday thing and I rarely ate whole nuts otherwise. I think peanuts, almonds and cashews are the exceptions, but they were almost always without shell. It's been a few decades, but I remember having red and green (default, I guess, but maybe dyed green as well?) pistachios at Christmas and having to fight with the shells to get them out. They were the tastiest and I didn't care much for walnuts, chestnuts or pecans.
Searching about 'red pistachios' also suggests it was a way to hide lower quality nuts. I'm not fully convinced about that, though, because I remember red dyed things tasting terrible as a kid. I don't think most modern red food coloring tastes bad, but it used to. The amount of dye that made it on to the edible portion may not have affected the nut's flavor too much, though.
All that to say: It could have been a marketing gimmick?
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