Eco Child’s Play

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In my earliest memories, I was already recognizing excessive packaging. An experience that stands out was my love/hate relationship with Paas Easter egg coloring kits.

I would ask my grandmother, “Why do those tiny dye-things need such a big box? I don’t even use the rest of the stuff, and I have my own crayons.”

To which she replied, “So people don’t steal them.”

Consequently, that answer was given to me many times over during childhood, yet I noticed rolls of breath mints and tubes of lipstick eluded this logic. Nevertheless, I was optimistic each year that my eggs would be just as bright and blemish free as those on the box (they never were), and continued to wonder what would happen if I ate one of the tablets. Odds were that it would not taste like a SweeTart, turn my mouth blue for a week, and could even lead to possible gene damage. Such is the industrialization of a holiday.

Having my own kids now, I’m faced with an obscene selection of egg decorating kits at the store. They come in three main varieties: licensed, glitter, and “swirl.” Personally, I would like to see this age-old tradition carried out less like a bling contest and more like a science experiment.

Eggs can be dyed naturally using a variety of fruits, vegetables, and spices. I recently found some helpful tutorials on the topic:
Natural Dyeing of Easter Eggs - Good general directions with a list of dye color sources.
Easter Egg Colors to Dye For! - A very extensive look at the process, as well as some neat decorating techniques.
The All-Natural Easter Egg Dyeing Experiment - Written by one of my favorite food bloggers, Gezellig Girl. Her results are pictured above.

For me, it just isn’t Easter without the smell of vinegar wafting through the house. I’m glad to report that this ingredient remains essential in most of these methods. It also enables kids to learn about natural pigments, and engage in a more challenging egg hunt.

Best of all, you can most certainly eat the dyestuff without worrying about what happened when they tested it on lab animals. The Easter bunny would be proud, since said experiments caused his genetic mutation into a giant talking basket enthusiast.