Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Eating out and food dyes

We've had some surprises with eating out with dyes in foods you would not expect to have any colors. I thought I would share so you can avoid some of the same pitfalls.

Wendy's chili--red 40
pickles on every burger and sandwich everywhere--yellow 5 &6, blue 1
mustard, mayo and other sauces--yellow 5 and 6
vanilla ice cream (yellow 5 and 6 at Steak and Shake, but the vanilla yogurt was OK)
brown loaves of bread in steak houses and other restaurants--red 40
seasonings on fries, especially curly fries--red 40
popcorn--yellow 5 and 6
blueberry bagels or muffins --red 40

That's in addition to all the obviously red or yellow stuff out there like strawberry flavored things, fruit punch etc.

A good rule of thumb is ask the waiter whenever you order anything in question. We double check seasoned rices, salad dressings, rice, cranberry juice cocktail, etc.

2 comments:

Sherry C. said...

I'll add Chili's cheese pizza or chocolate milk. My son had these for lunch, and it didn't take long for me to realize one (or both) had something artificial. Thanks for the heads up on the others. This is so hard. I guess we'll be really limiting our dining out.

Casey said...

It's frustrating how hard it is to find dye-free foods at restaurants. If you have Jason's Deli near you, they have organic PB&J and their kid's turkey sandwich is ok if you switch it to a white cheese. Plus, they give you a Yummy Earth lollipop for dessert!