I have to admit that being a mother to a child who is sensitive to food dye had its moments of disappointment. I grew up in a home where we were blessed to eat homemade dinners almost every night. That didn’t mean, however, that our home didn’t contain the staples of Top Ramen, Kraft Mac&Cheese, processed cheese slices and Cambell’s soup concentrate. My mom did a good job feeding us considering that I don’t think we ever questioned the quality of the ingredients in mainstream marketed food products. We used to take dye and add it to food for fun. Like blue pancakes or green mac&cheese. In fact, I used to do the same fun things for little kids I used to babysit not having any idea that dye mattered. It just never occured to me.
That changed with my daughter. We discovered artificial food dye just wasn’t going to be allowed in our home for the mental health and sanity of us all. It turns out we are not the only ones affected by this chemical sensitivity and even the Lancet came out with a November 2007 study (random, double-blind and placebo controlled) that links hyperactivity to artificial chemicals and preservatives. We have had to be more creative in the types of sweets and treats we allow our daughter to have. This past Halloween was interesting in that I found all dye-free candy to give to her to replace the Halloween candy she got from Church during our Trunk-or-Treat.
I can’t tell you how pleased I was when I discovered natural food coloring prior to Camden’s third birthday. She wanted pink and purple cupcakes and I was pondering on how to make them. Lo and behold, I came across India Tree’s natural food dye. I purchased my set on Amazon.com.
India Tree’s food dye is vegetable based and contains no corn syrup or synthetic dyes. The pitfalls are that you will be hard pressed to get any primary looking colors out of this dye. At the most magenta is about as close as you will get to “red”. It is also pretty pricey.
However, for people like me this is just a wonderful alternative. It was wonderful to make my little girl fun homemade cupcakes for her Birthday and to make traditional frosted sugar cookies for Christmas or to dye easter eggs for Easter. We are pretty devastated right now because we can’t find our India Tree dye, we lost it sometime over Christmas so we’ll keep looking for it. Wish us luck! Here are Camden’s Birthday Cupcakes.
India Tree also carries a variety of natural dyed decorating sugars. However, they are not the only company offering synthetic free alternatives. The following companies also offer natural dyes.
Nature’s Flavors – They also give directions on how to use their dyes for Easter Egg coloring.
Seelect – Colors are sold separately.
If you don’t have the money to purchase any of these products there are also helpful sites that offer foodsource alternatives for getting the color you need. Here is one site.
Also, we found sprinkles that are colored with natural dye as well and we love them! We’ve also used chocolate candy coated sunflower seeds (purchased at Trader Joe’s)t o use as sprinkles on ice-cream.
Please let me know if you know of any other natural food dye brands and I will post them.
A lot of vegetables make great dyes (we use them for easter eggs)
I don’t remember them all off the top of my head, but here are a couple:
onion skins–make a deep yellow/gold color
beet peelings–dark purply/pink
red cabbage–pink
You just have to add a little vinegar to make the colors set.
Darn I wish I could remember more right now–if you find more, I’d love to see a list! I’m currently working on over-dying some bright red yarn with onion skin to make it a darker, more burgandy color…we’ll see how it works!!!
These are the examples given on Allergy Grocer, one of the links I put in the site, for dying eggs.
Egg Coloring Ideas
Source: Diane Hartman
These are things I have used to color Easter eggs: If you are using the dyes to make colored icing or dry items like play dough, omit the vinegar.
Dried powdered spinach will make a yellowish green. Add 1 teaspoon vinegar to 2 tablespoons powdered spinach and 1 cup boiling water
Dried dark red beets will make a red or pink shade(depending on how much you use.) You can use them in the wet form, if you smash them, and strain the juice thru cheese cloth. You can also use dried red beets to make a great pink or red icing(perfect for valentines day) it does not effect the flavor. Strawberry juice or jam also work well for a flavored red or pink icing.
Red onion skins use very little water, boil and then strain thru cheese cloth
Yellow- turmeric(for Easter eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric + 2/3 cup boiling water and 1/2 teaspoon vinegar
Brown dyes- 1 tablespoon instant coffee(or loose tea) 2/3 cup boiling water 3/4 teaspoon vinegar tea and coffee produce different shades of brown, so you might to experiment with this one. For an even different color(darker) brown use, but use cocoa powder instead of coffee
red cabbage juice makes a bluish color
Blackberry juice- reddish blue dye
Blueberry juice- bluish grey dye
Violet dyes:
1/2 cup violet blossoms(can be found in the spring)
1 cup boiling water Allow to stand for three hours, and then strain thru cheese cloth. This will make a purple-blue dye
Lavender- add 1/8 cup lemon juice, it will cause some type of chemical reaction and make lavender color
Green: Add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and the dye will turn green, and if you allow it to stand for several hours to overnight, it will turn a dark yellow or orange
Hope Camden had a good birthday
I was going to post the same ideas but it looks like others beat me to it! Anyway here’s another article on dyeing easter eggs naturally that I remember being excited about when I first read it years ago. Hopefully this year will be the year we actually do this. It sounds really fun.
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=546576ecfd22f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=easter%20egg%20dye&rsc=header_4
Very good and useful post.
Thx, your blog in my RSS reader now ;)
I LOVE INDIA TREE and I love the pic you have of all the colors they have. My pantry is full of the colored sugars for cookies. I buy them at Dean and Deluca or allergygrocer.com
Thanks again.
Great article on food colorings. We too have struggled with our grandson’s sensitivity to food colorings, especially red and blue. This was found after we spent several years tracing some emotional and behavioral issues back to MSG in his food. His doctor was the one who suggested that we also watch for food coloring.
Since we eliminated the MSG and food dyes from his diet, he is a different child, one that loves the world and behaves like any normal 5 year old. If anyone is interested in knowing about what we went through, your can read about it at the web address below or you can contact me personally. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/451066/monosodium_glutamate_and_my_grandson.html
His 6th birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and we are now looking for natural food colorings for his birthday cake, (which he can very seldom eat because of the additives in cake mixes and synthetic colorings in frosting). Fortunately there are many colors to choose from and we now make all baked good from scratch.
We look at food and food additives in a totally different way than we did 9 months ago. The benefit is, my wife and I have eliminated many harmful chemicals from our diet also.
Thanks for stopping by David and thanks for the link. We also try to avoid MSG. I am so glad to hear about your grandsons recovery. It is amazing what a little diet change can accomplish. We too bake our own goods and homemade cakes are usually quite simple and not much more involved than a box mix. We made a great chocolate cake this week for my step-daughter’s 8th Birthday if you’d like the recipe.
Kirsten, thanks for the website tip!
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[...] “Barbie” these days. Here is a picture of her cake. The frosting was made out of natural food dye since Camden is allergic to regular food dye. Her reaction when she saw her cake? [...]
For my Daughters birthday cake with pink frosting:
Take 3 cans of beets, drain the juice of the beets into a sauce pan, bring to boil and continue to boil until it is reduced by atleast half, then turn down just a bit and continue to cook (stirring frequently) until it is thick and syrupy.
It produces such a a beautiful color and you cant taste it at all in frosting. Just a dab is all you need, add more for more intense color.
3 cans of juice boils down to like 3 tablespoons but a little goes a long way. Freeze the rest for later use.
Fabulous recipe!
[...] Flavors has several options for organic food colors. And thanks to a wonderful blog called Journey to Crunchville, I found even more information about natural alternatives to food coloring. Please visit her site [...]
Use post. I was googling natural dyes and your blog came up. I have the colored sugar (for sugar cookies) from India Tree and they work great and it’s nice knowing we aren’t feeding our kids petroleum.
Oops, I meant “useful post”. :)