We Tried It: Natural Easter Egg Dying

Guest Post from Co-Conspirator Jess!

A friend of mine in Wisconsin who is part of a 4H group was telling me her experience of natural Easter egg dying, I was more than intrigued.  It sounded romantic to this greeny wannabe - to use things in my own pantry, no additional purchase which means less packaging, knowing the source of color and that in most cases it would be provided by organic/sustainable/fair trade items.  What a great lesson for my 3-year-old son on being resourceful.  So with eagerness and excitement I dove head first into a homemade dying adventure.

Most of us when we dyed Easter Eggs are familiar with the $0.99 Paaz dying kit.  But what are those little tablets we are so eager to dip our eggs in? It’s concentrated food coloring, the familiar ingredients you probably see on candy, yogurt or a whole host of packaged foods such as the FD&C Red 40, Yellow 5, or Blue 1.  So what’s the big deal?  Why not dip the eggs in those gorgeous color baths.  Well in some cases it is believed that these artificial colors can produce hives, thyroid cancer and/or tumors in rats, and can exasperate ADHD like symptoms.  Not to mention a lot of these synthetic colors are made from acetone, coal tar, and petroleum based products.  Mmmm – yummy!  I will say however, that when I was doing the research it was very difficult to find clear, “hard” scientific data to back up the symptom claims.  What was very obvious and factual was how they are made, and the fact Norway banned almost all these substances, and European Union has much more stringent controls on them than here in the US.   

Every time I delve into environmental research it is hard for me to wade through the boogieman scary news stories of how all companies are out to give us cancer and what seems to be rational discourse on the matter.  So do I believe food coloring is going to produce ADHD in my kid? Probably not. But I also don’t think for a second the green or purple ketchup is good for him.  I’ve become a better label reader and do try to avoid as many synthetic dyes as possible in foods.  The easiest way to do it is by cooking whole foods, such as fruits and vegetables for our meals, trying to make homemade alternatives for snack/packaged items, and if that isn’t possible limit what packaged goods the kids can have for a snack.  However, I find for my life to be sane and balanced (and not get be the weird hippie people in the neighborhood) that I have made peace with my kid having a Capri Sun from a neighbor kid or perhaps an Oreo (gasp!) every once in awhile.   So with these ideas in mind, lies the justification for me to attempt natural egg dying.

The principles in home made dying are pretty simple - use fruit, vegetables, spices, and even teas, to create different colors.  It most cases you need to boil the dye agent (for example turmeric) along with the eggs, water, and vinegar (to help the dye take to the egg shell).  So you can really let your creativity and inner mad scientist go wild by experimenting with all sorts of food substances.

I decided to try three different dyes: spinach, turmeric, and cranberries.  I really love blue and green eggs but had no idea on how to get those colors.  I figured whenever I steamed spinach the water always ends up green so why not try with the left over wilting leaves in my frigid to produce a dye.  With extreme confidence I put in spinach, 2 eggs, 1-quart water, 2tbsp vinegar and boiled for 15 minutes.

After the eggs were boiled I pulled them out with anticipation and… spinach turned out to be a complete bust.  Except for some slimy limey coloring around a few cracks on the eggs the shell didn’t give any appearance of changing color.  So a no go for green. And as an added bonus I had a kitchen stinking of vinegar boiled spinach.  Not to be deterred I got out the turmeric that I had purchased in bulk at Whole Foods, not a typical spice I have in my house but was a recommended as a dye by the Master Gardner who provided the information.  I have no idea as to the proper quantity of spice that is actually needed, so I threw in all $0.30 worth into the pot with gusto.

Now these eggs – were beautiful.  There rich warm yellow, the natural speckling, these are the visions I had when I first heard about this project.  The only hang up was that one of the eggs exploded.

Now my house did smell of an Indian restaurant for the rest of the day, but nothing that a little fresh air and a soy candle couldn’t take care of.   Onto the cranberries.  The berries (blueberries are also a great possibility but we need to eat them in this house) were suggested as a natural paint for little ones to do.  I think you mash them up, strain through a coffee filter (as is suggested with other dyes to reduce the speckling if that’s not your style), and then voila!  Natural paint.  Umm, did I mention I also have an 11month old that was crawling underneath my feet the whole time this was going on?

An extra step like straining cranberries wasn’t gonna happen this year.  So I threw in the unused holiday frozen cranberries in to the pot and began to boil.  It wasn’t quite the color I expected but I thought it was still really pretty.  My friend told me all the colors come out very natural & muted.  Other suggestions for reds and pink dyes are ingredients like red cabbage, red onion skins, letting hard boiled eggs sit in pickled beet juice, etc.  If you want to get deeper colors strain your dye and hard boiled eggs and place the eggs back into the dye bath and can let them sit in your fridge for hours more or overnight to get bolder colors.  An extra step that again, just was not possible for me this year but will want to try in future years.

I was pleased with the turn out (minus the spinach debacle)

I thought they looked very pretty and would be an egg-cellent decoration for a centerpiece on the table.  My only other concern was I could see a few hair line cracks on the eggs and I didn’t want to eat vinegar flavored eggs, luckily no other taste was imparted to the hard boiled eggs so they weren’t wasted.

While I was so happy to have gained this knowledge and try more at home projects, the process was not something that I could do with my 3 year old.  We have other ways to decorate, crayons, markers, Parent’s magazine just had an article with decopouging with tissue or using buttons, or even gluing on felt to make egg-creatures.  And we will continue to experiment with all these possibilities, because the thing with a kid is what doesn’t work this year just might work next year.  And in the mean time, I might go ahead and relax a little bit and allow for the $0.99 kit, after all we aren’t eating the shells right?  And how can I pass up a moment like this?

Thanks, Jess, for trying this great project and all your fun photos!