While some popular fruit snacks use Red 40 and Blue 1, these Juicy Burst snacks are flavored and colored with real fruit juice. Spirulina is also used as a coloring; the blue-green algae creates light-blue colors or can be combined with other natural colors to create greens. All four bright colors ‘gush’ with goodness.

To achieve a rainbow of colors in this favorite cheesy crunchy snack, lots of plants are used. Turmeric and paprika add orange and yellow coloring. Beet and watermelon juices make red and pinks. Juice from the Columbian huito fruit makes blueish colors or can be mixed with yellows to make green.

The regular version of Doritos is colored with Yellow 6, Yellow 5 and Red 40. These Simply chips are not. Dusted with lots of vegetable and cheese powders, the ingredient list includes organic tomato, onion and garlic powders, along with organic Romano cheese, buttermilk and cream.

We love those artificially pink iced animal cookies, but the grahams in this snack pack are still pretty and pink. Beet and carrot juices color the little Bunny Grahams perfectly. Cocoa powder colors the little chocolate bunnies in the mix.

Most candy-coated chocolates are colored with artificial food dyes like Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue 2 and others. But Justin’s candy pieces are not. It’s almost fun to read the ingredients list to discover what colors the green, blue and brown candies; the list includes carrots, turmeric, spirulina and blackcurrants.

There’s no skimping on the strawberry filling in this healthier version of a fruit bar; strawberries and prebiotic fibers are the first ingredients. To get the bright red strawberry color just right, black carrot juice is used. Prebiotics from the mix of whole grains and legumes are good for the gut.

Many packaged baked goods with fruit contain dyes. Sometimes the dyes are used to make “berry bits” (specks of flavored sugar and palm oil) look more enticing. But these soft, whole-grain Snack Bites are baked with real blueberries and seeds that you can see.

Cereal and milk make a nutritious between-meals snack. And a whole box of cereal is economical because it usually offers more snack servings than a typical box of crackers. While most brightly colored cereals have removed food dyes, some have not. Froot Loops has probably retained its food dyes because those Loops just wouldn’t be the same as those of our childhood, for us adult cereal lovers. (The dye-free Froot Loops sold in Canada definitely looks different!) But dye-free, naturally colored Fruitful O’s are still a bright bowl of ‘loops’ made with purple corn flour, yellow corn flour and annatto seed.

These Cheerios are actually ‘very berry.’ Not only do they contain real freeze-dried powdered strawberries, cranberries and raspberries, but they’re also colored with fruit and vegetable juice colors. We also like that a serving can be considered a healthful cereal with three grams of fiber, three grams of protein and 11 grams of added sugar.

To make meat sticks and jerky look more appetizing, some brands use caramel coloring. The amount of coloring in meat snacks is very small and unlikely to cause problems. But as mentioned, doses of food dyes add up, so if you drink a lot of cola which contains significant amounts of caramel, you may want to choose dye-free meat snacks. These tasty Pepperoni Sticks are colored with cherry powder and paprika.

Check jerky labels; many like this one are simply colored with soy sauce which adds salt and umami, and natural coloring.

Frozen breakfast sandwiches are a speedy protein-packed snack – a few are even perfect for your vegetarian teenager – or yourself. While most plant-based meats are not known for their simple short ingredient lists, most alternative meats are creative when it comes to using natural plant colorings (especially beet juice) to achieve enticing meat-colored products. The color of these new Breakfast Patties is probably the most ‘real’ we’ve seen; they look like Canadian bacon – and taste a lot like it too. Lycopene derived from tomatoes is used to achieve the pink hue. Besides lycopene, the short ingredient list is composed mainly of mycelium, a root-like structure that’s grown indoors and naturally contains protein, fiber and B vitamins.

If you love to spoon up the maraschino cherries in a fruit cup, know that maraschino cherries have historically been colored with the nostalgia bright red shades of Red 3 – or more recently with Red 40. But the red cherries in Dole fruit cups and several other brands are colored with a coloring from nature known as carmine or cochineal. Interestingly, it’s from an insect, but the coloring appears to be quite safe. Look for this natural coloring in candies, dairy treats and beverages.

Cherry-flavored-anything often contains artificial dyes – and some applesauce packs do too. So we were happy to see this red applesauce flavored with real cherries and using vegetable juice for color.

If you want super bright ice pop colors, there are a lot of options that have dyes. These GoodPops are colored and flavored with organic fruit and vegetable juices. And of course, they freeze up just as fun as the brightly colored pops.

Good news. Regular ol’ Oreos don’t have any food dyes. And neither do the Lemon Cream Oreos; natural annatto seed is used to create yellow. Of course, don’t eat the whole package. But the original is sometimes the best way to cure that craving with just a few cookies.