Dye Free vs Regular Chips: Can you taste the food dye?

By: Olivia Cannon and Audrey Jones

Everyone knows the biggest problem with Cheetos or Doritos is the orange stains they leave on your hands, and if you are not careful, you will track them everywhere. You can’t do anything while you eat these chips because you will look down and realize that bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos you just ate left red powder stains all over your shirt, gaming controller, TV remote, and your math homework. And do not even consider giving them to a child whose tiny sticky fingers will be leaving neon red handprints all over your house. Lucky for us all, there is a solution. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to phase out all of the petroleum-based food dyes from the American food system by the end of 2027. The Frito-Lay chip company jumped ahead of the trend and newly released a dye-free and artificial flavor-free version of their Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch Doritos, as well as their Puffy and Flaming Hot Cheetos. These new versions are called Simply NKD, similar to the 2013 Simply Cheetos with White Cheddar Cheetos, but this time their goal was to release a dye and artificial flavor-free version of their most popular chips. 

I am Olivia, a senior at Jenks High School, and the first time I heard or saw anything about these, I was walking through the store with my mom, and I immediately thought that they looked disgusting. Their packaging was all white, and the photo on the front was a strange beige version of the normal chips you would see. I was certain that there was no way these could possibly taste the same as the normal ones. I don't normally eat chips, so I had no plan of trying these. Then my dad brought home a bag of the Simply NKD Flaming Hot Cheetos, and surprisingly, they tasted good, but of course, I had not had the normal ones in a long time, so I was still convinced they tasted different. I mean, there is no way they can taste the same one that looks like it was designed by the sad-beige moms of TikTok, and the other one is neon red. 

I am Audrey, and I am also a senior at Jenks High School. Olivia introduced me to the dye-free snacks, and I became curious if you can really taste a difference. 

Our goal is simple: we want to find out if people can tell the difference between the original chips and the dye-free chips. We chose to test this with the Flaming Hot Cheetos and the Nacho Cheese Doritos. In order to find this out, we went to the cafeteria on two separate days and asked 40 students to participate in our experiment. We had half of the students try the Doritos and half try the Cheetos. We used the triangle test method, where we gave each student three cups. Two of them would have the same kind of chip (two cups with dyed chips or two cups with dye-free chips), and one cup would have a different kind of chip. The students were blindfolded and asked to try all three chips and tell us which one was different. We did it this way in order to avoid the 50/50 guessing chance if we only had them try one of each chip and guess the dye-free. 

Hot Cheetos: 

Could people tell the difference between the Hot Cheetos?

Out of the twenty people who participated in the experiment, nine people thought that they would be able to tell the chips apart before taking the test, seven people said they did not think they would be able to, and four people said they were unsure. 

Could people tell the odd Cheeto out?

Out of the twenty people that participated in the experiment, seven people were able to guess the odd chip out of the three, and thirteen people were unable to figure out which chip was different. 

Could people tell a difference in flavor?

Out of the twenty people that participated in the experiment, fourteen people said there was no flavor difference, while six people said that they could taste a difference. Some of our respondents commented on the taste, saying: 

“The dye-free was wayyy more spicy,” said one of the participants. This was one of the main reasons that the six people said they could tell the difference in flavor. 

“The regular Hot Cheetos had more tang,” said another participant. 

“The second one [dye-free] was sour,” said the outlier. We only got this one response claiming that the dye-free Cheetos were bitter.

Could people tell a difference in texture?

Out of twenty people, two people could tell the difference in texture, while eighteen of the people we tested said there was no difference in texture. 

Would people buy the dye-free Hot Cheetos?

Considering that both kinds of chips cost the same price, out of the twenty participants, fifteen people said that they would buy the dye-free Hot Cheetos in the future, while only two people said no, and three said maybe. 

Since there were three options, if you were to randomly guess which chip was the odd one. 

 Doritos:

Could people tell the difference between the Nacho Cheese Doritos?

Out of twenty people, eight people said yes, six people said no, and six people said maybe, when asked if they thought they would be able to tell the difference between the dyed and dyed-free Doritos. 

Could people tell the odd Dorito out?

Out of twenty people, fifteen people guessed correctly, and five people guessed incorrectly, when asked to tell which chip was different. 

“It was like I was reaching in the same bag,” said Jenks High School vice principal Fox.

Could people tell a difference in flavor?

Out of twenty people, eleven people said no and nine people said yes when asked if there was a difference in flavor.

Some of our participants said:

“The regular [chip] tasted like there wasn’t any seasoning,” said another participant, “like none at all.”

“I think the dry-free taste is better,” said a participant. This seemed to be the main consensus.

Could people tell a difference in texture?

Out of twenty people, sixteen people said no and four people said yes when asked if there was a difference in texture.

Some of the participants commented on the texture of the Doritos.

“The dye-free was powdery,” said a participant. 

Would people buy the dye-free Nacho Cheese Doritos?

Out of twenty people, fourteen people said yes, four people said maybe, and two people said no, when asked if they would buy the dye-free chips in the future. Both chips, dyed and dyed-free, cost the same amount at $4.43.

Conclusion: 

The National Library of Medicine explained that when doing a triangle test, because there is a ⅓ chance of guessing correctly, you cannot just interpret the data as how many people could not tell the difference, because you will have to calculate in the guessing chance. To do this, you need to multiply 20 by the number of people tested by ⅓, which will end up being 20 X 0.33 = 0.67. This shows us that if everyone randomly guessed, there would be around 6.67 people saying they could tell the difference between the chips. Only 7 people correctly guessed the difference for the Hot Cheetos, which is really close to 6.67, meaning that we can assume that, because of the guessing chance, there is no real difference between the dye-free and regular chips. For the Doritos, there were only 5 people who were able to tell the difference between the chips, since that number is so close to 6.67, it can again be assumed that there is no real difference between the chips.