EGGS

8 Natural Easter Egg Dyes

The Huffington Post | By Sarah Klein



Filling your plate with a vibrant array of colors can help guarantee that your body gets the key vitamins and nutrients it needs. In one of this holiday weekend's most creative traditions, a typically-white (although still nutritious!) food -- the egg -- will don a wide range of colors, meant to disguise it in suburban backyards and display it proudly in showy baskets.

Okay, so dyeing Easter eggs isn't exactly what they mean when nutrition experts tell you to eat your colors. But it turns out that some healthy, natural ingredients that you probably have around the house can help make the festive activity just a bit healthier.

First, a look at what you're actually doing when you dip those eggs. The first food dyes were sometimes toxic and even used to cover up rot, according to the New York Times. For over a century, the FDA has been cracking down on artificial dyes, banning Orange Number 1 after it was found to be toxic and Red Number 2 after it was suggested to be a carcinogen.

Today, some studies suggest a link between food dyes and ADHD in children. Consumer advocacy group the Center for Science in the Public Interest has, since 2008, been pushing to ban food dyes altogether, and petitioning the FDA to require warning labels on foods containing dyes. The FDA concluded last year that there was still not enough substantial evidence to warrant the addition of warning labels.

But, should you discover upon cracking open your dyed, hardboiled eggs, that the egg whites are now egg pinks or blues, are you in trouble? Not necessarily. "The likelihood of harm from some dye on one occasion a year is apt to be very remote," Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center and a HuffPost blogger told Healthy Living in March.

As we saw in this now-notorious video of digestion, food dyes aren't absorbed by the body; the blue Gatorade this study participant drank stays blue as it travels through the body (which, according to one expert, might actually be a good thing).
Still, it's best to follow a few general words of egg-dyeing wisdom: If you're going to eat your dyed eggs, you'll want to opt for food-grade dyes, liquid food coloring or a commercial egg-dyeing kit. Just make sure to store them properly. Eggs can last up to a week in the fridge, Tanya Zuckerbrot, R.D., writes for FoxNews.com, but if they've been left out for more than two hours, it's best to toss them.