COLORING MATTER IN FOODS 103 



Coloring matter in foods. Foods are colored either to de- 

 ceive the purchaser or to please him. Deep red jellies give the 

 impression that good and abundant fruit has been preserved ; 

 golden yellow cake, that many eggs have been beaten in ; bright 

 green peas, that young fresh seeds have been used ; and rich 

 red ice cream, that fresh strawberries have been mixed with 

 the cream. Dealers who do not use good material color their 

 poor material in order to make it attractive enough to sell. 

 Many a cake which contains no eggs is so colored that it looks 

 like a rich home-made product ; artificial vanilla may be colored 

 with caramel until it has the shade of the pure extract ; mus- 

 tard may be a mixture of dyed flour and mustard. Uncolored 

 oleomargarine is oleomargarine and deceives no one, but colored 

 oleomargarine may pass for butter. In all of these cases the 

 public is cheated, because it does not get genuine material. 



Foods are sometimes dyed in order to please rather than to 

 deceive. Vivid green Hallowe'en candies owe their brilliant 

 color to dye ; so do the pink icings and decorations on cakes 

 and candies, and the different colored ices served at parties and 

 receptions. The public knows that pure sugar and cream are 

 white, nevertheless it wants colored candy and colored ice 

 cream. Artificial coloring is due to vegetable dyes or to aniline 

 dyes. Vegetable dyes which come from well-known harmless 

 plants are harmless and can be used without injury to the 

 body. The water drawn from boiled spinach will give a green 

 color to candy and icings, that from beets, a red color, and that 

 from carrots, a delicate yellow. All of these can be easily ob- 

 tained in the home and used for artificial coloring. Turmeric 

 (orange), indigo (blue), and annatto (yellow) are well-known 

 vegetable dyes formerly used in commerce. But harmless 

 vegetable dyes are not so cheap as coal tar or aniline dyes 

 and do not give so vivid a color. The green from spinach is 

 never as striking as the green from a coal tar dye ; the red from 



