Artificial Food Dyes: More Questions than Answers

So I started researching artificial food dyes and the process of how they come to be after I wrote the blog post on How to Make Green Beer, Naturally. And I found frustratingly little information. Here is the process as I understand it:

Artificial food dyes come from petroleum. In a lab, they undergo some chemical processes to extract the exact color desired. What is the process? Is it dangerous for either the chemist or the environment? These are questions I could not find answers for.

So dear Sensient Technologies:

What kind of processes do synthetic dyes have to go through to become a dye? In my mind, I’m picturing a big blob of petroleum and you perform some chemical processes (adding acids or bases? Adding heat or freezing?) to extract the color you are looking for. Is this image close or is it way off base? What kind of side effects does it have for the chemist and the environment? 

And what happens to the rest of the “blob”? Can it be used for something else or does the chemical reaction break it down so much that it becomes unusable? Can you get other colors from that blob or can you sell it to another company (because petroleum is at the base of so many products in our world today)?                 

I was going to go into a brief explanation of how dyes were produced and then write about the ill effects of ingesting them. The latter is widely publicized, though heavily debated. I think I will come back to this aspect another time, as I’m currently stumped by the first topic. If anyone out there knows more about this, please let me know!         

Anyway, on Monday, March 16th, we’ll be back with some lighter reading—making a DIY fairy/Leprechaun house.

Thanks for reading!

💜

Laura