I was eating some Cheetos puffs the other day, one of my guilty pleasures as you may have already learned from earlier posts. As I watched the palms of my hands assuming an unnatural science-fiction orange — the fingers themselves becoming like terrifying animated Cheetos sprung to life — I began to wonder about the color.
Among the interesting questions I found others posing online about Cheeto orange was: “Do Cheetos turn your poop orange?” The color is apparently “manufactured from aromatic hydrocarbons from petroleum”. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Or, to put it in visual terms:
Cheeto orange
I began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t a better way to color Cheetos… something a little more natural. What was the closest thing in nature to Cheeto orange?
Golden lion tamarin
Not quite. But we begin getting closer:
Almost Cheeto-orange fungus
And closer still:
Cool Cheeto-ish jellyfish
From the floral world (you’d think they could pull some orange out of these):
Marigold
Cheeto fish
And finally, I have found the color that is closest to Cheeto orange in nature. And think what a service we would be doing if we could figure out how to deliver this color to the Cheetos laboratory so it would no longer be terrorizing our streets?
skinny girls & mayonnaise 
May 24, 2011 @ 00:41:17
OMG Sean…lotsa Wine Guerrilla 😉 There was an actor who was even sort of past my time who was the most dashing of all named George Hamilton…he was the ultimate in tan and orange…and Mom will find comfort in this post because of the reference to YOU KNOW WHAT (as opposed to YOU KNOW WHO) 😉
Orange is color I avoid with a passion although at this moment, I am wearing salmon…a very lovely derivative…and those crunchy Cheetos…if I wasn’t a skinny girl…would be all that.
May 27, 2011 @ 23:34:10
Try the other, edible marigold, the calendula. That might do the trick!!
When we used to buy the big box of snacks for Max’s school lunch, cheetos were the only thing he wouldn’t eat. So that became my secret vice. It’s been a long time since I’ve had one, but I still sometimes crave them.
Feb 04, 2015 @ 05:35:29
Cheeto fish! =) This whole post had me laughing. The color of Cheetos is almost as crazy as the orange from a box of Kraft’s Mac N Cheese. Wonder what that chemical compound would look like?
Feb 04, 2015 @ 17:20:26
I think Cheet-os and Kraft Mac n’ Cheese are the same Panatone color. I think it’s a unique color registered to Conagra or whoever the mega-parent corporation is.