Natural food dyes

Each pregnancy is different, and the longer you wait in between pregnancies, the more stuff changes.
The latest trend for expecting parents is to have a Reveal Party.  This is a get-together where the couple either knows the gender or is surprised by the revealing of the gender with cute little things like the color of a cake inside (pink or blue, obviously), or having a sales clerk wrap a onesie and unwrapping it in front of family and friends.  I recently had one of these and had my husband find out during the ultrasound, but kept it a surprise until I cut open the cake in front of my family.

Having read about the effects of food dyes, especially on pregnant women, I thought I would go for a naturally-dyed cake.  Sounds simple enough.  Either use strawberry for pink or blueberry for blue.  Not so simple.  I tried all of the different grocery store bakeries, and none of them made their batter from scratch, nor did they dye their batter at all.  The frostings they used weren't natural dyes, nor could they use them.  I finally found a place nearby which sells organic and natural food, who were willing to use natural food dyes but were going to charge me $5/person.  Are you kidding me?!!! It would've been more than $100---for a simple CAKE!  

So I ended up just buying the cake from the grocery store with the blue icing in the middle and just didn't eat any of it.  

I'm very disappointed that the only organic bakery around here would try to highjack the prices so much that it wasn't even an option.  I find that a lot of eco-friendly products and services are much more expensive than the regular variety that it turns a lot of people off from even considering purchasing them.  It's a shame that this fad has turned into a money-making scheme for some people and companies.  

I understand that some of the artifical and toxically made things are cheaper to mass produce, but shouldn't they be mass producing the good stuff too?

There are ways to offset these costs by using coupons for other things, but for the average Joe this just won't be an option.  Sure, the benefits to the environment and overall health of people and animals should outweigh the costs of the products, but in this economy, with money so tight, people will buy what they can afford.  These companies need to start being a little more cost competitive or the fad will disappear, instead of turning into a legitimate lifestyle.  

Some food for thought.