Why is Cheddar cheese orange?

Answer 1

Cheddar Cheese is orange because they color it as such. But that's such a dull answer and still doesn't explain why they color Cheddar that color.

So here's the cool answer: Milk takes on different colors based off of diet of the animal. Thus, a diet of beta-carotine will result in orange-tinted milk and thus, orange tinted cheese. This is the fact you need to keep in mind for the following hypothesis:

Cheese taste is also highly affected by the food an animal eats. If a cow eats a lot of onions, its milk will lead to oniony cheese.

So back in the day in England, Cheddar Cheese (that is to say, cheese from Cheddar, England) was found to be quite tasty indeed - better than most other English cheeses. As it was so popular, the folks in Cheddar could charge a wee bit more for their cheese than other folks.

Then some scalawag noted that there was an orange tint to the Cheddar cheese. Being a greedy little bastard, this scalawag added a tad bit of coloring to his own cheese, and started selling his cheese as Cheddar as well. People's tastes being what they are, they probably equated "more orange" as meaning "more Cheddar-like", and started paying more for the more orange cheeses.

Meanwhile, back in Cheddar, they couldn't understand why people went ga-ga over orange, as the color had absolutely nothing to do with the taste. The taste came from the fact that their cows ate different grasses and that the cheese were aged in different storage facilities than other cheese making areas of Britain.

That's why Cheddar Cheese is orange. Because we want it to be.

Answer 2

Like many cheeses, the colour of cheddar is in lots of cases changed with the help of using nutrition colourings. Annatto, extracted from the tropical achiote tree, is many times used to furnish cheddar an orange shade. The origins of this custom are clouded, however the three best theories seem to be to allow the cheese to have a relentless shade from batch to batch, to help the buyer in figuring out the variety of cheese whilst this is unlabelled, or to perceive the cheese's area of beginning.

Answer 3

Annatto, extracted from the tropical achiote tree, is frequently used to give cheddar an orange colour

Answer 4

Gold/orange...in color...some cheddar is white, or yellow or orange.

Answer 5

Like KJ said!

Answer 6

See the links below
http://www.gianteagle.com/main/article13...
http://www.foodreference.com/html/fchedd...

Answer 7

They add coloring to it!

Source(s):
http://www.gianteagle.com/main/article13...

http://www.foodreference.com/html/fchedd...

Answer 8

I rekon its one of those things that is meant to be.

Answer 9

LMAO...
yeah, what Kib said.

Answer 10

hhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm