tonykattvc said: That's mayonnaise? I'd throw that out if it was that yellow.
Fun fact: Mayonnaise is made of the yellows in eggs, vegetable oil, and lemon juice/vinegar (and some other minor ingredients), it's just that Western mayo is dyed to a standard color of white because that's what consumers expect.
NWSiaCB said: Fun fact: Mayonnaise is made of the yellows in eggs, vegetable oil, and lemon juice/vinegar (and some other minor ingredients), it's just that Western mayo is dyed to a standard color of white because that's what consumers expect.
In many parts of the world, mayonnaise is not stained and appears white-yellowish. It's also very common in some recipes to mix mayonnaise with mustard (especially with sea foods like blue mussels, I believe).
NWSiaCB said: Fun fact: Mayonnaise is made of the yellows in eggs, vegetable oil, and lemon juice/vinegar (and some other minor ingredients), it's just that Western mayo is dyed to a standard color of white because that's what consumers expect.
KichiroT said: Most home-made mayo I've seen is whitish though.
That's because mayonnaise is fundamentally an emulsion of oil in vinegar, with the egg yolk as the emulsifying agent. The yellow of the yolk is diluted by the oil and then denatured by the vinegar. The more oil and vinegar you add, the whiter your final product becomes. And people tend to add quite a lot of oil.
The real secret to shining-white store-bought mayonnaise isn't dye, though. Companies can get away with adding egg whites and water to their mayonnaise for volume because their powerful mixing machines will emulsify more effectively than people at home. They can also cheat further by adding straight-up chemical emulsifiers to the mix, taking the yolks out of the equation entirely.
Needless to say, if someone making homemade mayonnaise really wants to make it white, they can use the egg-white-and-water trick too, with a little extra mechanical effort.
