Is Luster Dust Edible... Or Not?
Decorating By Melvira Updated 27 May 2013 , 12:07am by chocochipleesy
I have seen many types/names... Luster dust, pearl dust, sparkle dust, shimmer dust, they all seem to do the same thing... make your cake look gorgeous. I have cake sparkles from Wilton, but they aren't the same as this stuff. I was going to order some from Country Kitchen, but then it said it is 'not a food item and should not be considered as such'. It also said it should be 'used on pieces that are removed from the cake'. But then it shows a gorgeous cake all painted with this stuff, and I know they aren't going to scrape off the entire surface of the cake!! SO, can you eat this junk or not? I am totally tweaking 
trying to figure this out! I did find edible glitter, and it would seem to me a no-brainer that you can actually eat that, but it wouldn't work for painting the cake like the dust does. L'il help here?
It is a real toss up as to which states will say that itis actually edible or not.I say that most people are going to only have a small piece anyway so I don't think there is enough of anything in the lustre dust to make anyone sick but that is JMO! All of the great decoraters like Colette and Nicholas lodge etc..use lustre dust on their cakes and lots of it so I say go for it and buy yourself a bunch!!
It is a real toss up as to which states will say that itis actually edible or not.I say that most people are going to only have a small piece anyway so I don't think there is enough of anything in the lustre dust to make anyone sick but that is JMO! All of the great decoraters like Colette and Nicholas lodge etc..use lustre dust on their cakes and lots of it so I say go for it and buy yourself a bunch!!
Wow, I didn't know it wasn't edible! I don't have any, so I'm not worried that I didn't warn anybody ... but that's interesting! You know, I remember as a kid seeing little silver balls on cakes. I think they are still available; but I don't know where to get them. Anyhow, I always wondered if they were edible!
littlelinda, are u talking about silver dragees or sugar balls?they are also considered non-edible but non-toxic due to silver used in it..but wow, i love using them..
Lustre dust and dagrees are non-toxic, so eating some will not make anyone sick...........like eating a non-toxic crayon. I guess if you ate tons of the stuff, you might get sick.
Let me preface this by saying I'm sorry-I know someone is going to be offended by this post.
Americans have a tendancy towards hysteria when it comes to our food supply. It is particularly bad in California. Here in California if there is any potential for exposure to a dangerous chemical, it must be labled. Who wants to buy a product that claims to be dangerous?
Examples-arsenic appears naturally in the earth, so natural spring water contains minute amounts of it-in California the water bottle must say -Warning contains arsenic which has been shown to the state of California as being a dangerous chemical... What it doesn't say is you must drink a case a day for 20 years to even come close to being dangerous. Balsamic Vinegar contains lead and it too must carry a similar warning, never mind you have to drink 2 cases a day. Lets be real, is this going to happen in the real world? Don't even get me started on wine. Congress is supposed to be looking at this measure because it is costing the food industry billions a year.
Europe and the UK for years were ahead of us on these things, but that is changing with the EU. Friends in Scotland tell me this "fear" is driving the small artisan food producers out of business. Man has evolved over millions of years (no I do not want to enter THAT debate 
) a little mold on our cheese and a little shimmer on our cakes is not going to kill us.
Luster dust is not a food item, meaning you don't eat it out of the bottle, but used as an accent it is food safe. The silver dragees are banned here in California and can not be shipped. I use them, but I'm not telling how I get them. 
I've been able to buy silver dragees here in CA. However, in order to sell them they do have to be marked "For decoration only"
I agree that if a person ate the whole case full they may get sick but come on........most people know better.
Same with the luster dust. But who really eats the flowers and stuff that has it on anyway. Maybe on the fondant but you use such a tiny amount that there is no way it will hurt you.
Here, here Elfie. You raise some ecellent points. I mean, I'm not saying we should drop all of our standards and start buying rotten meat at the grocery store, but we could stand to relax a little in some areas. 
Tell you what, I will go ahead and use those luster dusts, and not even worry about it! Anyone who eats enough cake for it to make a difference has issues much larger than luster dust!! 
Elfie! I must admit to sitting here chuckling at some of the posts I read about what's considered safe in the US and what's not - we don't even contemplate half the stuff you guys do, and let's face it, us Brits have been around much longer, so it obviously hasn't done us any harm - -oh, wait a minute, maybe that's where some of we Brits get our eccentricty from - excess silver balls & lustre dust ingestion !
I'm from the UK and on some of the various sugar supplies web-site the lustre dusts (particularly those from Edable Art) are listed as non-food items. I got all worried about this at one point, but apparently they are non-digestable and just come out the other end - I love the idea of ending up with a glittery poo! If any of my clients ask I generally say that I personally wouldn't eat the icing just because I don't like eating artifical stuff - but it won't do them harm if they do eat it. I always peel the icing off and am always vagguely horrified by people chomping into the darker icing when I think of all the colouring in it!
Have you heard of anyone that died from eating it ? Let's ask Colette Peters, Kerry Vincent, Mike's Amazing cakes, Duff, Confetti Cakes and all those famous cake makers who uses them a lot.. 
omg you guys are cracking me up lmao. I think its kind of like the egg white scare. I know alot of people that make there ri still using egg whites ( I do on occasion when I'm out of meringue powder) A lot of people even still use it to make their lemon meringue pie (and no the meringue is not baked long enough to be considered well cooked) because they dont want to waste the whites when they have used the yolks for the lemon. I have no idea what is considered edible in Canada but I guess I'll have to look into that lol
Melvira! I just spit diet coke out because of what you wrote! I am laughing so hard. That's why I love CC - you always get a good laugh when you need it.
A disco ball.....hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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