"coloring" news and stories

This month, Plenty Magazine offered a recipe for a Do-It-Yourself egg dye for all of you who are worried about the chemicals in those Paas packs. But Paas are overrated anyway, right? I mean, the little stickers never change, and does anyone really use those colored shrink wraps?


Mix the following in a pot:

-1 Tbsp. spice or herbal tea, or four cups of chopped fruit or veggies (see below for specific colors)
-4 cups water
-2 Tbsp. white vinegar

Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 15 minutes (leave longer for a darker shade).
Then, dip your eggs!

To get those pretty colors:

Pink/red: pomegranate juice, red onion skins, beets, rhubarb, cranberries, raspberries
Orange: yellow onion skins, paprika, saffron
Yellow: orange or lemon peels, carrot tops or skins, celery seed, ground cumin or turmeric
Green: spinach
Blue: red cabbage, canned blueberries or blueberry juice, blackberries, grape juice

Source

The strawberry milk that is sold by Horizon Organics is white, unlike the pink strawberry milks sold by some of its competitors. The company is having a hard time finding a natural, organic coloring to give it the familiar color that consumers associate with strawberry-flavored milk.

And they are not alone.

For a company to use the "USDA Organic" label, the ingredients must be organic and the colorings must be natural. The colorings must be from organic ingredients for a product to claim that it is 100% organic. Fresh produce and other products don't usually have issues with colorings, but other organic products do, which can give them a disadvantage in the marketplace because consumers expect their food items to look a certain way. Strawberry milk, for example, is generally a shade of pink.

So organic food processors are looking for natural plant sources that will produce the colors they want and trying to encourage farmers to produce organic versions. Beets are used for red, carrots for orange and turmeric for yellow in many products, but many categories are left without coloring. To help alleviate the problem and not put organics at a disadvantage, the National Organic Standards Board is planning to meet this spring "to devise a precise list of natural colors that can be used in organic foods until organic colors are commercially available."

Source