"Green" Egg Dye

Dying eggs 20th century style most often uses a little food coloring, vinegar, and water. Historic egg dying, pre-food coloring, used vegetable dyes rather. I've been looking at the ingredients of your generic brand food coloring to see if it has any contents that are harmful to the environment or your health.

The ingrediants label:
water, propylene glycol, fd&c yellow #5, fd&c red #40, fd&c blue#1, citric acid, sodium benzoate.

The ones that I'm unsure about are the glycol, colorants, and the preservative sodium benzoate.

What is propylene glycol? Glycols are alcohols, so I don't think it will be that hazardous.

Material Safety and Data Sheet (MSDS) describes it as a colorless, tasteless liquid that may cause eye and skin irritation. Wear safety glasses and gloves. A little further down: Hazardous if ingested, do not induce vomitting. MAY AFFECT GENETIC MATERIAL!

Further DOWN:
Ingestion: Prolonged or repeated ingestion may cause hyperglycemia and may affect behavior/CNS (symptoms
similar to that of acute ingestion). http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Propylene_glycol-9927239

We use this a lot, even if it's a little at a time, for so much that we put into our bodies. I had no idea until now!

Coloring Agents Red, Blue, Yellow:

Blue #1: MSDS Chronic affects from low doses over a long term says -
Ingestion: Prolonged or repeated ingestion may cause hyperglycemia and may affect behavior/CNS (symptoms similar to that of acute ingestion). The acute sympomts for high doses in the short term are:
Ingestion: It may cause gastrointestinal tract irritation. It may affect behavior/central nervous system(CNS depression, general anesthetic, convulsions, seizures, somnolence, stupor, muscle contraction or spasticity, coma), brain (changes in surface EEG), metabolism, blood (intravascular hemolysis, white blood cells - decreased neutrophil function), respiration (respiratory stimulation, chronic pulmonary edema, cyanosis), cardiovascular
system(hypotension, bradycardia, arrhythmias, cardiac arrest), endocrine system (hypoglycemia), urinary system (kidneys), and liver.

Ecological affects are nill. Of course it doesn't list the affects from the processing of the color and the propylene glycol.

You know what, I'm not even going to go on about the rest of the colors or preservative, which I will leave up to you to do espcially the sodium benzoate (ick!). It's really enough for me to just jump right into the beautiful vegetable dyes.

At my very cool job, we make vegetable dyes for students on field trips to use to dye eggs. It is very easy, but just a little more cleanup than your handy bottles of poison. We make a beautiful yellow, red, and blue then let the eggs sit in the colors for just a few hours to soak up the dye and voila!

So what did we use?



photo from:

http://www.herbsociety-stu.org/DyeingEggs.htm

Chopped up purple cabbage, beets, and yellow onion skins. Boil these veggies and watch as the colors seep out.

I remember as a kid, I got beet juice on my fingers when, instead of eating them, I picked them up to hide in the trash. But that color was soooo pretty! So just let the veggies boil for about 15 minutes, then cool, and drop the eggs in.

You may want to do small amounts so that it is easy to store all this in the fridge, vegetables do have a funky odor, then you must put the vinegar in, eeew, so put it in the fridge to avoid wrinkling your nose all day. Check out the link above for cool ideas on kick-ass design ideas that are all natural for your eggs.

Naturally, it's probably best to get the vegetables have been grown organically, or in your own backyard to avoid all toxins.

Go Green! Hoppy Spring, and Easter.