Color Me Natural: Dye-Free Eating Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe cutting out artificial food dyes, mostly for children and sometimes for the writers themselves. Parents came to it through after-school meltdowns, hives after red punch at a family reunion, stomach aches, eczema, headaches or a video; adults came with forty years of migraines, hives eventually traced to a yellow tablet, and a pregnancy craving for neon sour candy. A delivery van driver in Cork whose son takes ADHD medication, a grandfather in Perth learning to cook for his grandson, a chemistry teacher in a Pune joint family, a school cafeteria manager in Portland, a pastry chef in Denver, a long-haul trucker, a supermarket cashier in London and a Detroit mother with a food assistance card and a bus pass are among them, from Utrecht to Quezon City. Writers swap juice boxes and blue pre-workout powder, make beet frosting for a red superhero cake, ask pharmacists for plain liquid antibiotics, and negotiate Eid syrups, Carnival cake, classroom parties and two households with different rules. Many results are uncertain: one twin seemed to react and the other did not, a daughter's trouble turned out not to be the dye, a quality inspector found no magic fix, and one mother describes carefulness that became strict enough to make her whole family miserable.

Who it's for

For parents reading labels in the supermarket aisle, adults wondering about their own headaches or hives, and grandparents, teachers and cooks keeping up with a family's new rules.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 281 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.