Making any sort of change to your diet and to your family’s can be a challenge. However, going dye free can be even more of a challenge because of the fact that you have to read ingredient labels, decipher tricky wording and look for ingredients hidden in plain sight. It all sounds a bit overwhelming, especially for someone new to the dye free world. In this blog post we will talk about not only eating dye free but also about how you can easily spot dyes in foods and how shopping for dye free can be easy. This post will also have a shopping list of all the dye free snacks we have tired and repurchase all the time. This post does contain affiliate links, if you shop through the links provided a small commission will be earned at no extra cost to you.
Where To Start
When you open your pantry and you see that it is full of questionable ingredients and colors it can feel like straight off the bat you have to throw away everything and you have no idea what to replace it with. Well I am here to give you the advice to start small, focus on snacks first. Finish what you have or donate to a food bank or a pantry swap so there is minimal food waste.
Convenient Snacks For The Win
I’m sure people would say “Well why can’t you just give your child some blueberries, or a cheese stick, an apple, those are whole foods and don’t have dyes?” Yes those are great snacks to offer your child and they should be at the ready in your fridge. However as a mom I know I need to have snacks in my bag to make car rides, grocery shopping, a quick snack from playing at the park you name it to keep the peace. Therefore I want those snacks that I am reaching for to be healthy, dye free, and convenient. So here are my tips and tricks for finding healthy dye free snacks.
Learning To Read Labels
By going to the FD&C website you will see that food dyes have names like Yellow 5, Red 40, Blue 1, when those and a number of others are present even if at the bottom of the ingredients list, I personally would not choose those as a snack for my child. On the back of some boxes of food you may find words like Tartrazine (Yellow 5) Allura Red AC (Red 40) Sunset Yellow FCF (Yellow 6) Brilliant Blue FCF (Blue 1) Fast Green FCF (Green 3) Erythrosine (Red 3). All of these are still the same food dye you want to avoid just in different wording.
Picking The Right Snacks
Now that we know the names of food dyes and that we don’t want to give up on something we are not comfortable feeding our children, we may ask ourselves “What snacks do we pick then?” A valid question after all the confusion and learning new terms. Picking foods like candy, cereal, baked goods, and many frozen treats all have food dyes. When scanning the aisle at the store, turn the product around and look at the ingredient list. Most of the time, if it has a long list almost like a paragraph of ingredients in that list it probably has dyes but also probably not the best option for your family.
Shopping Online
When you are learning something new it will take anyone a little bit of time to get it down. Trying to walk the busy aisle of your grocery store with our list of ingredients you want to avoid, picking items up and scanning the back can be intimidating to do around other shoppers who just want to grab their groceries and go. This is why I like to do one of two things. I go into the Walmart or whatever store app you like to shop at, and I type in snacks. I then go down the list, if something looks interesting I click on it. I then scroll through the available pages on the product screen and go to the ingredients list. Then in the comfort of my own home I can read the ingredients and decide if I want to add it to cart or not. Then if I want to make a pickup order I will if not Ill use the add to cart feature as a shopping list of sorts. The Walmart app even has a helpful map inside the app to help you find an unfamiliar product in store. Another way to shop is by making an Amazon order. The ability to get snacks that aren’t available at my local retailers is a huge win. As well as finding new items to try is always fun. Below is my list of dye free snacks that I have as staples in my home.
These are just a few of the dye free snack options out there. If you follow the simple steps we discussed in this blog post you will get used to making healthier choices for your family in no time. Remember that no one is perfect and messing up or letting your child have fun at a birthday party or sharing a snack with their cousin is not the end of the world. In my book I am more concerned with what is consistently available in our home for snacks. I do hope you liked this blog post about dye free snack options. If you end up trying any of these options out I do hope your family enjoys them!