A new 'healthier blue food colouring' could be possible in the future thanks to a metallic fruit that uses fat and reflection to generate a nutritious blue colour. The study published in Current Biology found Viburnum fruits use fats, or lipids, lipids, in their cell walls to turn striking blue. STRUCTURAL COLOUR ALLOWS V TINUS PLANT TO SHINE BLUE The fruit of the V tinus plant use a novel mechanism of 'structural colour' to shine a bright metallic blue. Vignolini said: 'While birds have been shown to be attracted to blue fruits, other blue fruits that we have studied essentially don't have any nutritional value.' Going forward, the researchers want to see how widespread blue structural colour is in fruits to understand its ecological significance.

Source: Daily Mail August 06, 2020 15:02 UTC