The color of food can send important messages about its quality. Now, many food companies, including McDonald’s and Kellogg’s, say they will stop adding artificial colors to their products.

McDonald’s announced in September that it had removed artificial colors from many of its hamburgers. Kellogg’s has promised to remove them from its cereals (谷物) by the end of this year. What people accept as a normal color for food can change from place to place and over time. Until the 1980s, Americans expected pistachio nuts (开心果) to be red. Pistachios were mostly imported from places where the nuts were dyed (染色) to cover spots. Now, most pistachios sold in the United States are grown in the U. S. and have natural-colored shells. But it is not just processed and boxed foods that create a false idea with color.

Cheeses

Many cheddar cheeses contain a substance (物质) added called annatto, which is commonly used for coloring. Elizabeth Chubbuck, of Murray’s Cheese in New York, said adding color comes from the time when cheese makers in England took the butterfat from milk to make butter. The leftover milk was whiter. So cheese makers added substances to recreate butterfat’s golden color.

Another cheese that sometimes gets color added is mozzarella. Sara Burnett is director of food policy at Panera Bread. She said mozzarella sometimes gets its bright white color from titanium dioxide, a common substance taken from nature.

Salmon (鲑鱼)

In salmon, a bright pink color is a sign of freshness to those buying the fish. Experts say this is why farmed salmon may have been fed food containing a man-made substance to make the flesh pinker.

The Food and Drug Administration notes that manufacturers have to declare on labeling if non-natural colors were used for salmon. For example, farmed salmon at Costco Wholesale stores is labeled “color added through feed”.

【小题1】What can we know from the second paragraph?

A．The color of food varies with places.

B．Most imported food has got color added.

C．Kellogg’s removed artificial colors from its cereals.

D．McDonald’s removed artificial colors from most of its food.

【小题2】Why were Pistachios nuts sold in the U. S. red in the 1980s?

A．Red is its natural color.

B．Farmers dyed them to cover spots.

C．Sellers added artificial colors to attract customers.

D．Producers added artificial colors to improve food quality.

【小题3】Which color in salmon is an indicator of freshness to customers?

A．White.

B．Red.

C．Yellow.

D．Pink.

【小题4】What’s the best title for the text?

A．Food Colors: Natural or Not?	B．How to Identify the Freshness of Food
C．Food Choices: Fresh Food or Processed Food?	D．Home-Grown Food Is Healthier Than Those Imported