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
514 points (95.9% liked)
Lemmy Shitpost
38129 readers
4424 users here now
Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.
Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!
Rules:
1. Be Respectful
Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.
Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.
...
2. No Illegal Content
Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.
That means:
-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals
-No CSA content or Revenge Porn
-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)
...
3. No Spam
Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.
-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.
-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.
-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers
-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.
...
4. No Porn/Explicit
Content
-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.
-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.
...
5. No Enciting Harassment,
Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts
-Do not Brigade other Communities
-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.
-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.
-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.
...
6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.
...
If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.
Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
1.Memes
10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)
Reach out to
All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Hey bud I've got some bad news for you.
What number do you see in this circle?
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
load more comments
(2 replies)
It's OK I ain't seen em either
load more comments
(1 replies)
US defaultism
this is mostly a US thing
Ate them in Canada for many years, am not American.
Red-dyed ones were all over the middle east when I was a kid, but I've never once seen them in the US sold this way. I think it just depended on what ~~exporter~~ importer your region mainly used.
Nope. I've seen them in other countries.
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
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
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
load more comments
(3 replies)
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 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.
Know your customer
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.
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.
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
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.
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.
load more comments
(5 replies)
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.
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
Holy shit you are pinning my exact experience. I grew up in Fresno CA and have never even seen a red pistachio in my life.
Well howdy neighbor! I grew up a few (not gonna say the amount) miles north of you. If you're in your mid 40s we might have competed against each other in sports/music/&c. growing up.
Beautiful area, great food, no?
load more comments
(1 replies)
32, American, never seen a red pistachio
I'm 34 and have never heard of these.
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.
load more comments
(3 replies)
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
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›