avoiding artificial food dyes: “healthy” chocolate milk | chemical-free, dye-free convenient alternative

Just about during every grocery run I find myself tweeting or facebooking my shock after what I read on ingredients lists when looking for healthier alternatives for my family. And I know it’s something that you’re interested in knowing more about based on the amount of emails, messages and comments about what brands I buy since I (mostly) don’t eat or feed our children anything with artificial flavors, dyes or chemicals like EDTA and BHA. There’s more, but that’s a whole other post 😉  Short of opening up my fridge and pantry and detailing every single brand that we buy, why we buy it and which brands not to buy that contain petroleum based products, I thought I’d start sharing some alternatives to the traditional brands that I make a point to look for when I grocery shop or that I unexpectedly come across (like the one below).

Chocolate milk is a treat in our house and until recently I’ve been making the kids their own from scratch or I’d use Camino free-trade organic hot chocolate mix. Regular chocolate milk is full of ingredients that I don’t allow the children to have and the sugar content is the least of my worries. In a short list of 8 ingredients two of them were petroleum based, chemically made products: artificial flavor and color.

So I happened to come across a product at the grocery store that I was thrilled to find because now the kids can look for it on those special days and not feel like they’re missing out on something fun that all the other kids get to have. Chocolate milk! But the good kind. Free of artificial flavors and dyes.  It was in the milk cooler above all the regular milk and creamers on the top shelf in a 1litre carton:

The ingredients list surprised me.  No chemicals. Nothing artificial.

Regular chocolate milk contains all the same ingredients but with the addition of gluclose-fructose, color and artificial flavor.

Since there’s no color added to this dye-free option, you’d think it’d be slightly lighter in color than regular chocolate milk but actually the regular version is lighter brown than this dye-free option which means they’re not coloring chocolate milk to make it look more chocolaty…they’re actually adding color to lighten it up a bit. Kind of like when they add color to certain brands of mayonnaise…what color was it before?!

So unnecessary!

Taste-wise, yes,  it’s a little different if you’re used to the artificial flavor version. It tastes like real chocolate milk. Not synthetic.

Mamas, if you have any questions comment below or drop me an email! amanda at naturalmommie dot com and remember to read your ingredients lists!