Easter Egg Dyeing!

As devout Christians, Easter is the biggest holiday of the year for my extended family. Given the significance of the event, there is quite the extensive feast to accompany the celebration. My mother and her three sisters pull out all of the stops in true traditional Ukrainian style. They bring homemade bread, cheeses, and sausages (yes, homemade), ground beets and horseradish (which serves as a condiment for EVERYTHING), a wide variety of fruits, and a ridiculous number of egg dishes. Now, as an adult in the family, I am expected to participate in the preparation of the meal, and I do so quite willingly. This year, I was asked to bring homemade biscotti and raspberry pie…and to hard boil and dye three dozen Easter eggs.

OK, so aside from the animal welfare concerns I have regarding increased egg production this time of year (something I was thinking about as I read that Americans purchase nearly 1 billion eggs in the week before Easter), I had major qualms about using our family’s traditional egg dyeing methods in light of this course. I grew up using Paas and/or food coloring to dye our eggs, but I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what is in those dyes – even after some research! The dye ingredients are not listed anywhere, and if you Google “egg dye ingredients” or “egg dye safety,” there is not really a reputable source…and most websites say something along the lines of, “Oh, they’re non-toxic. Don’t worry about it!” My thoughts:

• Why are these chemicals mysterious? Why can’t I find out exactly what’s in the dyes? If they’re like food coloring (which I’m told they are), then it’s propylparaben and some kind of glycol and…mystery ingredients “approved by the FDA.” But none of that sounds like stuff I want to eat.
• Why have I never been concerned with the mysterious chemicals I’m rubbing on the outside of my food before?

I have yet to find a really good answer regarding any potential hazards for Easter egg dye, but I elected to adopt the precautionary principle and use this as an opportunity to experiment with natural egg dyes – and what fun! My roommate and I used eight different types of “dye.” Four just required us to soak the eggs in the dye overnight with a little bit of vinegar. The other four required us to boil the eggs in the dye for about 20 minutes (also with a bit of vinegar). We used this website for guidance.

Soaking dyes:

• Red Zinger tea – lavender
• Red wine – purple
• Coffee – brown
• Beet juice – pink

Boiling dyes:

• Red cabbage – blue (soaked overnight)
• Spinach – grey/green (soaked overnight)
• Green tea – golden
• Onion skins – marbled orange/brown

While chopping up and cooking the ingredients required the better part of an evening, and while a LOT of ingredients were used for relatively little yield (although who KNOWS what volume of “stuff” is used in the making of concentrated dyes…), I was very pleased with the results.

My favorites were the green tea, red cabbage, and onion skins – I will DEFINITELY do those again next year.

While I enjoyed learning about these dyeing methods, that was not really the crux of my learning experience with this particular activity. That credit must be given to the EXTENSIVE dialogue I had with my family on the subject, who were surprisingly OPPOSED to my use of the natural egg dyes. The most common conversation I had in the past week was:

“Ew! You’re soaking our eggs in coffee and red wine and tea? Aren’t the eggs going to be gross? I mean, what if the egg tastes like coffee?!”

To which I responded with (at first) dumbfounded silence, then:

“OK. So let me get this straight. You would rather that I soak your eggs in a mystery chemical we can’t identify than coffee. You acknowledge that eggshells are porous and that dye can leach through, and you would RATHER eat mystery chemical than chance a hint of a coffee flavor on your eggs?”

To which EVERYONE responded:

“Yes! They test those dyes. They’re fine.”

I don’t mean to sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist, but TALK ABOUT BLIND FAITH IN THE ESTABLISHMENT! Wow. Who’s “they”? (I know it's the FDA, but do they know that?) And what do they “test” the dyes for? (And do the results come back as 100% conclusive, or is there some doubt?) And why should we trust them? (Have "they" never messed up before?)

This experience has forced me to recognize (again) the uphill battle we face. People don’t necessarily WANT to think outside of the box, or to doubt the system, or to change the way they do things. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that these eggs were “homework,” I’m not sure my family would’ve LET me do this – and they’re generally very supportive. Sigh.

Luckily, the eggs turned out beautifully, and with no discernible flavor additions. People were impressed. This counted as a win. But, I wonder how my aunts will respond when they all get flaxseed hair gel for Christmas…