Safely eating dyed Easter eggs

Is it OK for my children to eat the Easter eggs we dye?

It is, but be careful.

Dye kits from the supermarket are the same coloring that goes into food; the dye's not toxic. Some dietitians don't want us to eat food with coloring at all. Check ehow.com/ how_4875948_organ ic-easter-egg-dyes.html, for instructions on how to make dye from vegetables such as spinach or beets, says Josephine Connolly-Schoonen, a Stony Brook University dietitian.

Your children aren't ingesting the dye; it doesn't permeate the shell unless there's a crack, Connolly-Schoonen says. If some coloring does get onto the white of the egg, there's always egg surgery. "I'd make an effort to cut out the darkly stained part of the white egg," she says.

Most of the time when someone gets sick from an Easter egg, it's because the egg was left out of the refrigerator too long, perhaps in an Easter basket on the dining room table, says Connolly-Schoonen's colleague Suzette Smookler. "You'll have people who will leave them out decoratively and then eat them," she says. If you use them for an Easter egg hunt, throw them out afterward. The maximum time the eggs should be out of the fridge, cumulatively, is two hours, both dietitians agree. Symptoms of illness include vomiting or diarrhea. "It can cause severe gastrointestinal distress," Smookler says. If refrigerated, dyed eggs can be eaten for up to a week, the women agree.