Is edible red food coloring truly safe to consume?
There’s a tremendous range of food coloring choices that can be used in manufactured goods and in some cases available to home cooks to add extra color to baked goods or frosting. The question of what food color contains depends widely on the type of food coloring used. Each color tends to be derived from several ingredients, and comes in generally two forms. Dye form tends to produce less vibrant colors, is more likely to bleed, and is not soluble in oil. Lake form is oil soluble, tends to be more stable and does not bleed. Food colors used in many baked goods and cosmetics tends to be of the lake form. This is generally a combination of a food dye, used to make color, and aluminum pigment. The ingredients will vary according to color. It can be interesting to know what makes up the colors in food colorings. Some are naturally derived. For instance, green food coloring tends to get its shade from seaweed, and orange food coloring may be made from seeds. Red food coloring, which you mi
