There’s a tremendous range of food coloring choices that can be used in manufactured goods and in some cases available to home cooks to add extra color to baked goods or frosting. The question of what food color contains depends widely on the type of food coloring used. Each color tends to be derived from several ingredients, and comes in generally two forms. Dye form tends to produce less vibrant colors, is more likely to bleed, and is not soluble in oil. Lake form is oil soluble, tends to be more stable and does not bleed.

Food colors used in many baked goods and cosmetics tends to be of the lake form. This is generally a combination of a food dye, used to make color, and aluminum pigment. The ingredients will vary according to color.

It can be interesting to know what makes up the colors in food colorings. Some are naturally derived. For instance, green food coloring tends to get its shade from seaweed, and orange food coloring may be made from seeds. Red food coloring, which you might see listed as carmine in manufactured goods may not be so tasty once you hear what it is derived from. It tends to be made from the certain insects. Alternately, you can find red food colors made from beet juice or paprika. Brown food coloring made to impart a caramel color is usually less involved with the insect world and is derived from sugar that has been caramelized.

The above colors are considered “natural,” in that they get color from plants, spices or foods in the natural world. There are a number of “artificial colors,” which may also show up, especially in food coloring for mass-produced foods or cosmetics. Most of these are made from different mineral compounds, and are usually considered safe to consume. There are a few artificial food-coloring choices that may be indicated in illness for a small percentage of the population. In fact, this has concerned some nations so much that they have banned the artificial types and will only allow natural food colors to be used.

Food coloring indicated in health problems are the following:

• 1) FD & C Yellow No. 5 contains tartrazine. People who have aspirin sensitivity may not tolerate it and it may be especially a bad choice for people who have frequent asthma. Tartrazine is derived from coal tar, which has led to concerns for all people who consume it.

• 2) FD & C Red No. 3 contains erythrosine, another coal tar based compound. There is suspicion that this colorant may be carcinogenic. Rat studies showed development of thyroid tumors when high doses of erythrosine were administered.

In general, other FD & C colors have been thought to possibly have adverse effects on some people. Though these are unsubstantiated, claims that artificial food colors can cause depression, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder (ADD) persist. There has been much anecdotal evidence that reducing artificial food coloring in children’s diets may reduce or eliminate ADD. As noted above, to address this issue, certain European countries have made the use of FD & C colors illegal.