Easter Eggs – The Eco Friendly Way

This time of year eggs are a hot topic. One of the most frequently asked questions I hear among those who either raise their own or source farm-fresh, local eggs is whether or not brown eggs — the color most commonly laid in America’s backyard flocks — are suitable for dying. The answer is a resounding yes. In fact, brown eggs result in deep, rich hues that white shells just cannot compete with.

But how do you dye them without yucky commercial dye packets wrapped in yards of packaging waste? Well, naturally, of course.

Over the years we have experimented with many of those natural ways. Most call for many of the same ingredients as all the others, Mother Nature’s ultimate dyes — blueberries, red and yellow onion skins, cayenne pepper, beets; you name it, we’ve probably dyed with it. All have given us decent results.

With kids however, we’ve found that the recipes that require the eggs be boiled in the dye solution just aren’t reasonable options. They want to dunk their hands in the cups the way I did when I was a kid. I want them to be dunking their hands into something much more natural than what I did when I was a kid. And my husband just wants us all to be happy. Enter: Rosalind Creasey’s Egg Dying Guide on Mother Earth News.

Last year we did something very similar, but I fretted over having a wide selection of colors for the kids to choose from. This year, with Rosalind’s encouragement I’ll be sitting back and letting color mixing do the dirty work.

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Diana Prichard is a rural living freelance writer whose work and life is chronicled on her self-titled personal blog, a Handmade Food Columnist for Try Handmade and the one-woman show behind the small mid-Michigan farm, Olive Hill.