Simply dye your Easter eggs naturally

Next weekend it will be that time again. Easter is just around the corner. Of course, the tradition of egg dyeing deserves to be continued. You can find out how to dye or paint your Easter eggs in a natural way in our health tip.

Dyed eggs belong to Easter every bit as much as chocolate bunnies. In many living rooms, eggs are painstakingly painted and decorated for entry in the Easter weekend competition. Dyed eggs aren’t just beautiful to look at; they also provide important vitamins (A, D and B12) as well as nutrients and minerals that contribute to a healthy diet. If you want to dye your Easter eggs this year in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way, you can do it very simply.

 

Environmental friendliness and sustainability begins with buying your eggs.

Before you can start dyeing, you have to go shopping. You should ensure that your eggs come from a free-range or organic source. Choosing eggs produced in this way helps protect animals and ensure that the chickens have space to move around in. Ideally, people who live in the country should get their eggs directly from the farm around the corner. One generally has a good idea of how these chickens are kept.

 

Which foods produce the best dyes?

The next step is to decide on how you want to dye your eggs. You can create a range of colours and colour combinations using natural foods, plants and herbs :

  • Blue: red cabbage or elderberries
  • Grey: red cabbage stock mixed with blueberry juice
  • Purple: blueberry juice
  • Yellow: nettle leaves, carrots, camomile blossoms, turmeric
  • Green: spinach, parsley, ivy leaves
  • Red and pink: beetroot, cranberry juice, blackberries
  • Brown: coffee, onion skins, black tea


And this is how it's done:

Put the eggs and the dyeing ingredients into a saucepan with water. Bring the water to the boil and simmer at low to medium heat for 20 to 30 minutes. Once the desired colour intensity has been reached, you can remove the eggs from the water. If you want a more intense colour, take the pan off the heat and leave the eggs to stand overnight. In fact, this is highly recommended for some ingredients including blackberries, elderberries, blueberry juice, beetroot, onion skins, nettles and spinach.

 

Patterns and decorations

If you want to give your Easter eggs that special touch, you can sprinkle them with lemon juice or paint them (e.g. with a toothbrush or brush). This produces light discolourations. With grey Easter eggs you can also paint on very fine lines using white chalk. Eventually the eggs will look like stones.

 

SWICA supports healthy nutrition

A healthy diet can strengthen your wellbeing and health over the long term. As a holistic healthcare organisation, SWICA focuses on the health of its customers and not on their illnesses. For this reason, SWICA customers enjoy prevention contributions of up to CHF 900* a year and a wide range of nutrition-related health offers.

*Click here for details of the contribution.


17.04.2019
In the event of further health-related questions, SWICA customers can contact the santé24 telemedicine service free of charge on +41 44 404 86 86. A telemedicine practice licence allows santé24 physicians to provide additional medical services in cases that are suited to a telemedicine approach. SWICA customers can also use the BENECURA medical app to carry out a digital SymptomCheck and receive recommendations about what to do next. During a subsequent phone call with santé24, customers can decide for themselves whether to release their information from SymptomCheck to santé24.