This post was written as part of the DailyBuzz Moms February 9×9 Challenge: Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I am honored and excited to be one of nine bloggers chosen to share a rainbow-inspired blog post. The nine posts will be featured on Feb. 23 on DailyBuzz Moms.
In my corporate food science days (oh paycheck, how I miss thee) I worked with different companies that supplied colorants to the food industry. If you, as the product developer, were willing to put the term ‘natural and artificial colors’ on your product label, you could get just about any color you wanted. It often came after significant R&D work, as colors can be quite finicky to work with in certain food products. I once worked on a cake mix that we had to reformulate because the dark brown color we used caused blue streaks to appear in the batter when water was added to the dry mix. Apparently consumers don’t like to see blue streaks in their chocolate cake mix. Who knew?
When formulating a product with the goal of labeling ‘natural colors,’ your color palate was a bit more limited. See, nature doesn’t have any Blue Raspberries or Arctic Blueberries to provide that oh-so-natural-looking Smurf Blue color to yogurt or frosting or cereal. Natural reds, oranges, yellows, greens and some purples are pretty easily obtained thanks to carrots, beets, algae, spices and berries. (And sometimes crushed beetle shells. Yep – read about it here) Still, when the label says ‘natural food color’ it simply means the color originated from a natural source. To get the colors out of the natural source, there is quite a bit of chemistry and processing involved. Meaning, you don’t simply drop some ground beets into a vat of yogurt to make it pink. More like you drop some concentrated liquid that was made by processing beets with hexane or acetone and other solvents and then stabilized with a natural acid. Mmmm, acetone. Wait, isn’t that stuff in nail polish remover? Yep.
While ‘natural’ food colors are indeed a better choice than ‘artificial’ food colors, I think the best and healthiest food colors are those that come straight from the plant to you. Nature makes some bold, amazing and enticing colors. They can be pretty tasty too.
Want to start your day with a rainbow of truly natural colors?
Red Smoothie – Frozen Strawberries + Apple Juice
Orange Smoothie – Carrot Juice + Oranges + Ginger + Frozen Peaches
Yellow Smoothie – Frozen Pineapple + Frozen Banana + Pineapple Juice
Green Smoothie – Fresh Spinach + Fresh Kale + Frozen Peaches + Water/Ice
Blue(ish) Smoothie – Frozen Blueberries + Frozen Banana + Coconut Milk
Purple Smoothie – Frozen Blueberries + Frozen Blackberries + Frozen Cherries + Water
Combining all six of the smoothies creates a cheerful and vibrant rainbow smoothie full of nature’s colors, vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants and protein.
While the all-in-one cup smoothie was awfully photogenic, my kids preferred the single serving, single color little smoothie shots. They tasted each one and picked their favorites. Orange was tops for me, Red for my girl and Yellow for my boy. The husband was outside doing yard work (sorry dear) and didn’t get to choose a favorite.
I will freely disclose that I do not routinely get up and make six separate smoothies in the morning. While my plant-powered diet does give me plenty of energy, it does not make washing out the blender six times or hauling out all the frozen fruit in my freezer feasible or remotely pleasant for a school morning. My daily smoothie is generally a combination of the green and purple smoothies. It’s not as vibrantly singularly colored, but it is very filling and tasty and lets me start my day with 2-4 servings of fruits and vegetables consumed before 8am.
PS – Nature’s colors can be potent dyes, so I recommend consuming your natural smoothies on non-carpeted floors. :)
This is gorgeous! It’s like a row of lifesavers candies.
Acetone and hexane…mmm mmm, good. Wait…
SO COOL!!!!! That is beautiful!
Wow Michele! Definitely the prettiest smoothie I’ve ever seen. Scary to think about acetone in food.
i think i would have like the single shots as well, but it sure is pretty.
So pretty! I love the photos! And I love that you got such vibrant, beautiful, and not to mention, healthy colors all without the use of anything artificial.
beautiful smoothies!!!
isn’t it fun every now and then to make food look so pretty, even though you would never do it on a daily basis?!
Yes! And my greenish purplish (okay brownish) smoothie today was not as pretty or exciting and didn’t even get a picture taken.
I love this! I have to do it at least once.
I look forward to seeing your take on them!
I love this! Great job and I will do it once for the fun of it.
You have a hall pass until the baby comes. Actually, until you are sleeping through the night AFTER the baby comes. So maybe 2013?
Haha thats so pretty!!! And it’s true… it would freak me out if my chocolate cake mix had blue streaks in it!!! that’s so funny though. It’s crazy what we adapt to!
Great smoothie ideas! And very interesting info about how the colors get into foods. Eek! Blue yogurt always scares me a bit when I see it…looks so, well, unnatural!
Gorgeous! These would be great for a kiddo party.
love the smoothies! and love that you were able to get blue and purple, you’re so good. thanks for such a fun post! you may not make six separate smoothies every day, but I’m still super impressed you ever made them all at once!
Ha! Another one in the 9×9 went natural. I’m the one with artificial food coloring disclaimer. haha! The funny thing is that I’m actually a pretty natural momma, too- hence, the disclaimer. My kids just really wanted those crazy, bright colors to look at! I love these smoothies- We’ve just started to make them. It’s hard to get a variety of organic fresh fruit where we live so I’ve started buying mixed organic frozen fruit for smoothies. Great recipes! Thanks and congrats on the 9×9!
these are so pretty and look delicious! You just mix it all in your vitamix? I think I need a vitamix.
The VitaMix is amazing. Amazingly expensive, but we use it everyday. I’ve already used it twice this morning and it’s not even 8 yet.
looks amazing! and congrats on the feature, that’s so cool
Michelle, I love the idea of making rainbow smoothies. How creative! We make lots of smoothies over here at itsy bitsy foodies so I’m definitely remembering this idea!!
This looks great! I’m putting together a round-up post of Smoothie recipes next week, and I’m featuring you!
Thanks Jerri!