LilSugar

Would You Eat Gray Cheetos?

Katie Sweeney — Tue, 17 May 2011 10:32:13 PDT

Earlier today I watched an interesting clip on Good Morning America about how a food's color affects perception of taste. In the video, children and adults are given the same flavor of jello and chocolate pudding, but it's been dyed several different colors. Both the tots and grown-ups assume each color is a different flavor.

Most food is artificially colored in some way and at the end of the segment they point out that showing the natural color of certain junk foods, like Cheetos, might get more people to stop eating them. Cheetos are naturally gray and they're given a bright orange artificial color. Would you eat them, and other junk foods, in their natural state? How do you feel about artificially colored foods?

Source: Flickr User jeffeaton

Give Your Easter Eggs a Makeover With Eco-Eggs All-Natural Dyeing Kit

Rebecca M Gruber — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:46:10 PDT

It's eggtacular! With all of the talk about food dyes and their effects on young tots this week, mamas preparing for Easter may be thinking twice about how they'll color their eggs this year. Using plant, fruit, and vegetable extracts, rather than the Red 40 and Blue Lake dyes at the forefront of the controversy, the Eco-Eggs Easter Egg Coloring Kit ($16) still creates vibrantly dyed eggs without harming your tots or the environment. The kit comes with three pots of natural dyes that can be used to create six colors, as well as cutouts that can be used to transform the eggs into bugs, animals, and more. Best of all, when lil ones splatter the dyes on the table and floor, they can be easily wiped up in a snap.

A Rainbow of Issues Tied to Food Dyes; Test Your Knowledge

Rebecca M Gruber — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 07:30:58 PDT

They make food fun and enticing to a lil one's eyes, but there's more to food dyes than many mamas might imagine. The same drops that are used to create rainbow foods have been linked to attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder in tots and much more. This week an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration will meet to discuss the possibility of added warning labels to products containing synthetic food dyes. Take this quiz to see how much you know about these ever-present color makers in our favorite foods.

Source: Flickr User kckellner

Take the Quiz

Does Red Dye No. 40 Cause Behavioral Outbursts in Children?

LilSugar — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 05:00:00 PST

You are what you eat and so the saying goes, but a group of parents believe that the food coloring their children digest affects their behavior. Commonly found in processed foods like Twizzlers, Doritos and Twinkies as well as baked goods, red dye no. 40 is to blame for aggressive outbursts in kids according to some moms and dads. The FDA maintains that the dye is safe for consumption. What's your opinion?

Do You Use Natural Food Dyes For Your Child's Treats?

Leta Shy — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:31:27 PDT

Should warning labels be on artificially dyed foods? The FDA is trying to decide this following a study showing that those petroleum-based dyes found in everything from cereal to candy can cause behavioral problems like ADHD. If the findings worry you, moms who still want to make a colorful treat for her kids can still feed them the rainbow by using natural food dye, which are made from the colors naturally found in certain foods.

If you want to try out natural coloring, making your own can be half the fun of an afternoon of family cooking! Lil ones will love to experiment with homemade color combinations, which use common kitchen ingredients like red cabbage, beets, turmeric, onion skins, and coffee to impart pretty shades of pink, red, orange, and more.

Store-bought dyes are another great option, especially for decorating baked goods. India Tree Nature's Colors come in a pack of liquid red, yellow, and blue ($19) and can be combined to make other colors, while Nature's Flavors sells many different shades in powder and liquid form ($15 each).

While natural food dyes don't give you those vibrant colors that we're used to from artificial dyes, what better time than Spring and Easter than to experiment with different shades of pastels! What natural food dye tricks do you use?

Source: Flickr User AmberStrocel

May the Fourth Be With You - and Cake Too

Anna Monette Roberts — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:14:46 PDT

Today is May 4, the unofficial holiday that Star Wars fans have proclaimed Star Wars Day. If you encounter anyone wearing fanboy paraphernalia this Friday, make sure to greet them properly by saying, "May the fourth be with you." It will give you instant geek cred.

We made a Star Trek cake for Captain Picard's birthday, so of course we had to make a sweet treat for May 4 too.

To replicate this fabulous and fairly easy Star Wars cake, take a look at my decorating tips.

Link Time: 7 Types of Ballpark Eaters

Camilla Salem — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:05:26 PDT

Seven types of ballpark eaters - Food Republic
The best and worst food from Ikea and Costco - HuffPost Food
In defense of the seven-layer salad - The Kitchn
Starbucks is officially replacing red bug dye - The Daily Meal
Genius recipe: shrimp and grits - Food52
The best butters and spreads - Real Simple
Martha Stewart gets a new cooking show on PBS - Grub Street NY

Savory Sight: Not-So-Red Velvet Cupcakes

Yum Community — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:18:27 PDT

If you love red velvet cupcakes but not the bright scarlet hue that comes along with them, try gabi29's dye-free version.

Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting are just as delicious without the food coloring. Click here to see how they were made.

Share your own baking stories (and pictures) with us in the YumSugar Community. You could wind up featured here.

Baking With Color: Chocolate-Matcha Mochi Bundt Cake

Sara Yoo — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:45:57 PST

I love using color to brighten up my baked goods, but sometimes the idea of adding drop after drop of artificial food dye makes me cringe. So with St. Patrick's Day coming up, the hunt was on to find a natural coloring agent to turn my baked goods a lovely shade of green.

Historically used in Japanese tea ceremonies, matcha is finely milled green tea powder that today finds its way into mochi, soba noodles, ice cream, candy, and pastries to impart a light tea flavor and intense green hue. Although it's not a traditional Irish flavor, I thought I'd test the luck of the, well, Japanese and add it to my Springtime Bundt cake.

Taking the Asian influence a step further, I substituted mochi rice flour for the regular all-purpose flour, which made it denser than the fluffy Bundt cake of yore but a little chewy and texturally interesting. A layer of chocolate gives your palate more to mull over while you chew.

Ready for this different take on a Springtime cake? Just keep reading!

Green Tea 101: A Primer

YumSugar — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:29:10 PST

January sure is a busy month. Along with National Soup Month, it also happens to be National Tea Month. We thought we'd start off the festivities with a primer on a very trendy tea. Green tea came from Asia and took America by storm with its claims to fix just about every ailment. But what exactly is this wonder tea? Keep reading to find out.