Update of my favorite dye-free foods

My original favorite dye free foods post has been the most visited on my site. I decided to update it as I've found more favorites. We shop a little at the health food store due to food allergies (son needs to avoid wheat, dairy, soy, oats, lemon). Otherwise, we do the majority of our shopping at Kroger. (Helps to have my husband's employee discount so I opt for Kroger and Private Selection products whenever possible.)

Drinks: We do mostly water or milk. Chocolate milk has been a special indulgence only for restaurants. It is usually dye free. I've cut down on juice and Capri Sun since finding that 2 of mine get pretty wired on apple and grape products. However, 100% juice and Capri Sun are usually dye free. Watch out for individually bottled juice drinks. My husband once bought a juice blend that said 100% juice but it had yellow #5 added. We like Simply Lemonade, which is organic, They also have a pink lemonade colored with raspberry juice. Once in a while we get Vitamin Water or the Naturally Preferred H2O drinks for times when I know my kids will be around other kids with lots of Gatorade (baseball). We mostly survived baseball season with our own water bottles that I filled and took with us to each game. I found an old insulated diaper bag that kept them cool and saved us lots of money on concession drinks. Sprite and rootbeer are usually OK, although someone just commented on a post today that A&W rootbeer had dye in it.


We skip all lemonade and punch at restaurants, it always has artificial dye.


Breakfast foods: we make our own pancakes and freeze extras for quick meals on school days. Tip: Most Eggo brand waffles have yellow dye. Most Kroger brand waffles are dye free.
Yogurt: Regular Yoplait is usually dye free. Most of the Yoplait Light have dyes. We skip all the Gogurts, Yogos, etc. (more sugar and dyes added than good stuff) We recently found that Dannimals Crush Cups are dye free. So are the Dannimal smoothies, but fairly high on the sugar.
Cereal: We stay with plain cereals or organic. If you kids want sweet and colorful cereal Kroger brand Cocoa Crispies are dye free. We also like Barbara's Wild Puffis and several Puffin brand cereals (there's even a peanut butter one). Our Kroger has all the organic cereals in a separate aisle. We also like Kashi products.

What to eat for lunch: Macaroni and cheese: Kraft has a white cheddar and so does Kroger. We get the Kroger one and the sauce needs a little more mixing than the regular stuff, but my kids like it better than the yellow stuff. We no longer eat any kind of Lunchables. My kids did OK ditching the colored candy but the preservatives still seemed to set them off. We like Hormel lunch meat as it is all natural. I actually have 2 kids who love tuna. We have PB, but for some reason my kids don't like the jelly. (saves the problem of possible dyes there.)

Foods at Daycare/Preschool: this continues to be an area of struggle and frustration. I had the menu down and provided substitutes for all necessary items. Then they changed the menu for summer. My food allergy son takes his own lunch and is not allowed to eat anything that I did not personally pack for him. For my other two in the summer camp, I check each food ingredient and request to see the packaging on everything. I often spend an extra 5-10 minutes checking this at drop-off time in the morning. I supply extras for them to keep on hand of cookies, sprinkles, candy, popsicles, etc. The biggest factor in our success is my kids constantly asking, "Does that have any dyes in it? I can't have that."



Snacks: Stick with plain pretzels, chips and tortilla chips. If you want more flavor, try the Kettle Brand chips which are all natural. At our Kroger they are in a different section with the natural and organic products. Regular Fritos are fine too. Anything "hot" or BBQ flavored red usually has red #40. Most cheesy chips or cheese curls have yellow dye, but Cheetos has a natural one that is dye free. Microwave popcorn is another source of hidden dye (yellow #5) but Orville Reddenbocker and Kroger both have natural brands that are fine. We also like plain rice cakes and Sweet Pea Crisps for crunchy snacking.

Fruit snacks: Motts/Brachs has a dye free fruit chew (my kids still seems to bounce more after eating them, probably due to the apple juice). We really like FruitABu brand fruit snacks (health food section of Kroger) They have lots of organic fruit leather individually wrapped type snacks. You can also buy organic cereal bars that are dye free.

Candy: My kids love Yummy Earth candies and lollipops. They taste great, but I've only found them at the health food store. I keep them in my purse so any time someone offers us regular candy like DumDums, I decline and hand the kids my organic stuff. I also gave a bag to each teacher so my kids have safe candy at school. We also like Surf Sweets candy. I have other posts about their products. ToysRUs is supposed to carry surf Sweets, but the one by my house does not have it so I get it at the health food store. Basically, we check out the natural food section at Kroger and load up there before shopping in the regular part of the store.

Ice cream and frozen deserts: We check all ice creams for dyes. Many are fine, but we skip the obvious ones like strawberry and black raspberry. Many vanilla ice creams, frosting,etc have yellow and/or red dye. WHY? I can't figure it out, but they do. We found out the hard way that Steak and Shake ice cream has dye, but the yogurt doesn't. I am also wary of "artificial color". I think if they can't tell me where the color comes from, I'm not eager to risk it.
I make a lot of popsicles and smoothies when our fruit gets ripe by putting it in the blender and mixing in some rice milk and natural sweetener. Strawberry, banana, blueberry was a huge hit. We avoid all sprinkles at ice cream shops. Even the chocolate ones have red #40. At home, the Mr. Sprinkles in the clown bottle are dye free. Those are from Kroger too. Watch out for carmel sauces and some chocolate sauces. I have not found any strawberry flavored sauce or product that does not have red #40. I would also want to see the ingredients of the chocolate soft serve dip for cones before letting my kids eat that. I would guess it would have red #40.

Cake mix and frosting. Pillsbury and Dunkin Heinz have boxed white cakes and frostings that don't have dyes. Watch the chocolate ones for red #40. At least half of them have it. It's a pain, but read the labels. If you are going to a bakery, ask about their ingredients. Assume that most yellow cakes are dyed. Also beware of just scraping the frosting and sprinkles off cake at parties. If the knife drags through red frosting all across the cake, then the red 40 will be pulled all through as well. My kids have reacted to as little as one pink jelly bean.

Restaurant food: Beware! You would not believe how much extra stuff is in restaurant food. I thought I was eating healthy getting grilled chicken on a salad. When I have checked the ingredients, there is often a whole paragraph of extra stuff added to the chicken, including dyes. McDonalds adds dye to at least one of the grilled chicken marinades. Also beware that vanilla ice cream, loaves of brown bread, pickles, banana peppers and salad dressings are all common sources of food dyes. We simply don't eat out as often anymore (that milk/soy/wheat allergy makes it pretty tough). When we do eat out, we ask a lot of questions and really annoy the waitstaff, but it's a whole lot better to take that extra step than have 3 days of bad behavior.

So what do we eat? We still eat hamburgers and hot dogs. We make out own fries or bake frozen ones. We grill meat and seafood and have lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Left over green beans, broccoli or snap pea pods become a side dish for lunch. I plan ahead and pack lunches and snacks in cooler packs when I know I will be on the go so that we are not at the mercy of fast food. My kids love to have breakfast for dinner (scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, fruit). We make our own spaghetti and pizza, or we still do frozen pizzas too. We avoid boxed meals such as Hamburger Helper or Rice-a-Ronis as many of those have dyes. I also really like the 5 dollar dinner blog: http://www.5dollardinners.com/. She lives in the same area and has great ideas on how to cook cheap. She also has dairy free recipes.

If all this sounds restrictive, it is at first. It is stressful and time consuming to read lables and worry about food ingredients. But what you can gain is priceless. I have reclaimed my relationship with my children. We have largely eliminated tantrums and defiance, whining and aggression, hyperactivity and wild impulsive stuff that drove me crazy and robbed me of all my energy. What we have gained is true peace and happiness in our family. That is why I am committed to getting the word out. Every family deserves a chance at that kind of joy. Every Mom deserves to have her children be at their best, not their aggitated irriable, embarrassing worst. Every child deserves to eat foods that do not cause them to break down into a mess of behavior and emotion. Every family needs to know that simple changes in diet can do as much good as medication without all the side effects.