That rainbow ring survived something brutal.

That rainbow ring survived something brutal.

To shape it, colored dough is forced through an extruder, a steel barrel of high heat, pressure, and shear. Synthetic dyes shrug it off. Most naturals don't. Beetroot can lose half its color in there. Spirulina blue is a protein, so it basically cooks.

But the fix is real: use pigments that can take the heat, like annatto, turmeric, and caramel, or move the color out of the barrel and coat it on after. The extruder is not a barrel of gaffes. It is a barrel of variables, and they are all knowable before you run a batch.

So we ran this decades-old dilemma through DyeConverter: which natural colors actually survive an extruder. Dozens came back, in seconds. If you are reformulating an extruded product, message me and I will show you what your barrel can handle.