Annatto

Annatto is a seed of a tree that is native to the tropical regions of Latin America. It’s used as a food dye and a spice.

Cheese

Annatto is very common in cheesemaking. Orange cheeses, such as Cheddar, Velveeta, and American, are universally dyed with annatto.

It turns out these cheeses are not naturally orange! Historically, cheddar cheese had hints of orange due to the carotene in the milk. The colour of milk would vary based on the cow’s diet throughout the season and region. By the 1700s, it soon became a signal of cheese quality and cheesemaking started spiking their milk with annatto.

Besides manufacturers targeting consumer perception, this allowed them to keep the colour consistent. They could use more or less dye as needed. Ironically, in the modern world, this is no longer needed as production of milk is kept consistent, through factory farming and consistent feed quality. This means that modern cheeses do not need the dyes to keep the colour consistent.

However, tradition has completely taken hold at this point. Consumers buy more orange cheese than not, simply because they think that’s the normal state. So white american cheese or white cheddar is probably the base cheese product and “more natural”!

Other Foods

Annatto is used in Mexican cuisine for cochinita pibil, a braised pork dish. This gives the oil a bright orange hue.

In Vietnamese cooking, it’s what gives colour to bun bo hue and bun rieu, dishes known for the rich vibrant colour.

As Food Dye

Annatto is a considered a natural food dye by the FDA. This allows manufacturers to mark this as a natural ingredient, as opposed to artificial.

Other ingredients used for colouring include:

Ingredient	Colour
caramel	brown
cochineal	deep red
elderberry	purple
lycopene	orange
paprika	red
tumeric	yellow