There’s a bright side to food coloring!
Happy February… the month dedicated to celebrating love!
Food is definitely my love language, and making festive recipes to celebrate all the different holidays throughout the year is one way I express my love to family and friends. With Valentine’s Day coming up next week, I wanted to share with you some fun, easy, and healthy ways to add colors to your treats without the use of artificial food coloring. I have even included an entire year’s worth of holiday ideas below that are colorful and fun, but free from those synthetic dyes! But why would this even be worth a discussion or the effort to swap?
The color additives that have become very prevalent in our food supply are really synthetic chemicals produced by scientists to increase visual appeal. You’ve seen them on labels before—Yellow 5, Blue 2, Red 40, etc. They are in all kinds of processed foods and beverages, but also show up in children’s medicine, multivitamins, toothpaste. Many colorings are derived from coal tar and can contain up to 10 parts per million of lead and arsenic, but are still recognized as safe by the FDA!
The truth is that artificial colors can cause allergic reactions and are linked to hyperactivity in kids. Some are contaminated with carcinogens. They add no nutritional value. It’s mind boggling to me that some of them require warning labels and have been banned in countries outside of the United States, but food manufacturers here are allowed to specifically target children in their marketing of products that contain these chemicals.
I was also shocked when I was reading the label on some farm-raised salmon and saw that they added color! Sneaky! After some research, I learned they do this to get the same pink colored flesh that their wild cousins get naturally from their diet. Otherwise, farm-raised salmon would have a much lighter flesh or even a greyish color.
The great news is this—nature has provided us with so many vibrant colors, that we actually don’t even need the artificial ones in the first place! Just on principle alone, artificial colors is an ingredient I just don’t compromise on in our food. We have so many fruits, vegetables and spices at our fingertips that produce beautiful colors and are easy to incorporate! This, my friends, is the bright side to food coloring :)
Not only do natural colors do no harm, all the different colors of rainbow found in fruits and vegetables actually have different “jobs” in our body and can contribute to our health! These phytochemicals signify different nutrients that are beneficial for our bodies. For example…
Red Foods—Help Fight Cancer, Reduce the Risk of Diabetes and Heart Disease, Improve Skin Quality
Orange Foods—Improve Immune Function, Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease, Promote Eye Health
Yellow Foods—Support Gut Health and Digestion while Preventing Oxidative Stress to Cells
Green Foods—Boost the Immune System, Help Detoxify the Body, Restore Energy and Vitality
Blue/Purple Foods—Fight Cancer and Unwanted Inflammation and Help Keep You Young
White Foods—Protect Against Certain Cancers, Keep Bones Strong, and Are A Heart-Healthy Choice
Makes you want to add in more of these colors, doesn’t it?
If it seems daunting to try to avoid food dyes, I got you! Like I said, I want to help by sharing homemade recipes and even the brands you can find in stores that do not use them. In fact, it is really exciting to experiment with natural colors in the kitchen, and kids love it! If you’re ready to kick the artificial colors to the curb this year…
Here is an entire year’s worth of holiday-themed recipes + ideas
Sending love, health and wishes to you and your family a very colorful Valentine’s Day!
Love,
Lauren xo