"Sensient develops its natural colors starting with the seed. It has developed a variety of beets, for instance, that are larger and more saturated in color...."

"After the produce is harvested, Sensient pulps, pulverizes and strains the purple sweet potatoes, red radishes and grapes into a rainbow of extracts, powders and liquids. The process also eliminates the flavors of most of the underlying fruits, vegetables or other plants, but not all. 'You’re never going to take the taste out of strawberry juice. It’s going to be a little acidic, a little strawberry-ish. And that works well for a strawberry flavor in a kids’ cereal.... But nobody is dying for a carrot-flavored cereal.' Even though the color... doesn’t often change the taste profile... the appearance does signal certain flavors — or intensity of flavors — to consumers.... 'If you reduce the color saturation level of a drink, your mind may tell you it’s going to taste less sweet or less sour than the original color.... Duller hues may signal that this is a duller flavor or stale for some people, while for others it may signal that it’s a more natural color, something found more in nature.'..."

From "No More [Synthetic] Food Dye in Froot Loops? Not So Fast. Companies make packaged food without synthetic dyes in other countries. But despite pressure from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the change isn’t likely to happen quickly in the United States" (NYT).

The senses are interwoven. Some of us, including me, have little or no sense of smell, and a lot of what is referred to as taste is really smell. For me, the look of a food or drink contributes a lot to the illusion of flavor. By the same token, if some orange food that used to be flavored artificially were flavored with something made from carrot that smelled a bit of carrot, I wouldn't notice that unwanted smell. But I would notice the duller orange, and that would cause it to taste less... orange. It's complicated. I feel a little sorry for the food companies that find themselves in such a predicament after spending so much time and effort working to please us with everything that is non-nutritional about food and drink.