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Easter Eggs Naturally

© Traute Klein, biogardener

Try something new. Using natural ingredients, color the eggs which you are going to eat for Easter breakfast. Here are detailed directions on how to prepare them.

Color Naturally

As a child, I remember reading the book "Heidi" by Johanna Spyri. It was written in German, but it has been translated into many languages. You may not have read the book, but maybe you have seen the movie with Shirley Temple playing Heidi. One of the characters in the book is an artistic goat shepherd boy who paints the wildflowers of his alpine home with colors which he extracts from plants. The local school teacher buys the boy some real watercolors, and eventually, he gets to earn money painting wildflowers to illustrate a book on native flowers.

Back to Nature

Have you ever tried to use the colors which are found in the leaves and flowers around you? My first experience with natural colors could be seen in my clothes which got stained with the colors of the flowers which I used to pick, and I noticed early in life that they were not the same colors as the flowers had been. My mother was not too happy about the dyes on my clothes, but my family has a perfect method to get rid of flower, fruit, and vegetable stains. You pour boiling water over the stain. No soap, no soaking, no rubbing--just boiling water poured directly from a hot water kettle, and the stain disappears completely.

Easter Eggs Naturally

Easter is a good time to experiment with natural colors by using them on the eggs which we are going to eat for Easter breakfast. That way, we can be sure that no one will swallow poisonous dyes, because even food dyes are bad for your health. Some of them cause people to become hyperactive. The eggs can be boiled in water to which natural ingredients are added. Let me describe to you the method of boiling eggs which produces the best-tasting eggs:

• Place the eggs into a pot with cold water, making sure that the water covers the eggs.
• Add one teaspoon of vinegar to help the dyes to adhere to the shell.
• Add the natural dye from the ones listed below.
• Put the lid on the pot.
• Bring the water to a light boil and turn the element off immediately.
• Leave the eggs in the water for a minimum of 3 minutes. The longer you leave them in, the harder they get and the darker the color.

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