http://money.aol.com/bw/general/canvas3/_a/whats-in-my-food/20060808141909990001 What's in My Food? By Pallavi Gogoi Few people know that the food coloring listed as cochineal extract comes from female beetles. Food activists want to spread the word. When you dig into a strawberry Yoplait yogurt, take a moment to contemplate where the beautiful pink color comes from. Strawberries? Think again. It comes from crushed bugs. Specifically, from the female cochineal beetles and their eggs. And it's not just yogurt. The bugs are also used to give red coloring to Hershey Good & Plenty candies, Tropicana grapefruit juice, and other common foods... This was copied from a couple of the slide accompanying the article: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/08/food/source/4.htm Beetle Mania If you like Yoplait strawberry yogurt, Tropicana grapefruit, orange-strawberry juice, or Hershey's Good & Plenty candies, chances are you will be sucking on the red coloring extracted from the female cochineal beetle and her eggs. These insects live on cactus plants in Peru and the Canary Islands. According to the best-selling book by Eric Schlosser, Chew on This, the female bug feeds on cactus pads, and color from the cactus gathers in her body. The bugs are collected, dried, and ground into a coloring additive. It takes 70,000 of the insects to make a pound of carmine dye, as it is known. The Food & Drug Administration doesn't require that this cochineal be identified in the ingredients. Manufacturers simply identify it as an "artificial color." http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/08/food/source/5.htm Whites of Their Dioxides The next time you use Betty Crocker icing to frost your cake, or Kraft Cool Whip, remember the bright-white color doesn't come from vigorous whisking of cream and egg whites. Rather it comes from titanium dioxide, a mineral that is also used in house paints. http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/08/food/source/8.htm Not as Appealing In 1996, Gerber and Heinz were accused of adding water and starches like flour to the baby food they were selling. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food activist group, found that Gerber and Heinz's bananas with tapioca, for example, contain less than half the levels of nutrients found in their plain first-stage bananas. The baby food manufacturers have changed the way they formulate baby food over the years, but nutritionists say their bananas will still not be as pure as those freshly mashed at home.
And while you're at it, enjoy your jello... but then again, you all probably knew this one... :wink: http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/jello.htm
Marshmallows also! Did anybody make it to bug fest this year? I missed it but they looked like they were serving some interesting dishes again.
Don't forget the allowable contamination level for the other "regular" food products by rodent droopings, insect parts, etc. :wink: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3588081 Don't look too carefully at your toast this morning. American regulators have decided that it can safely contain one rodent hair for every 50g of the flour that goes into it. Your cup of coffee can contain 14 allegedly rodent-sourced carcinogens. And the canned tomatoes that you might have with your bacon are allowed up to either two maggots or 10 fly eggs in every 500g can.
They are made with gelatin just like Jello in the previous post which detailed the production of Jello. http://home.howstuffworks.com/question128.htm
OK, thought they were made of something else I hadnt heard of yet. Manure or something ... ya never know. :wink:
True. They do make a vegan marshmallow, which has no animal products, but I do not have any info on what may be included. They would not be in the regular food stores nor would they probably be priced comparable to the "regular" type.
My son came home and asked me, "Do you know what makes the crunch in a Nestle Crunch Bar?", I said, "Yeah, the little cripsy things that are like a rice crispy". He said, "No, they are dead crunchy bugs!" :shock: I almost fell out of my chair laughing! :lol:
I worked in the wholesale meat business back in the late 70's and 80's. I had to go and sweep the floors off the dock into 55 gallon drums. All the fat, grissel, garbage. and in the late afternoons the Tallow man would come and empty the cans. i found out later on that he was taking all of it to cosmetic companies to help make cosmetics out of it. yuk
In the same vein, I was watching "Dirty Jobs" on The Discovery Channel...anyway some pig farmer in Nevada gathered all the leftovers and scraps from all the buffets on the strip and cooked it in this gigantic cooker as food for his pigs. This cooker filtered out all the fat and oils from the slop, which he then gathered to sell to cosmetic companies :shock:
I made a sales call on a reclamation company in Norfolk Virginia that recycles dead animals for the cosmetic industry. The stench was unbelievable. It was even in their offices. Thank God I carry a small bottle of cologne in my glove compartment. I smeared it under my nose and was still close to gagging while I talked to the guy. Everyone there walked around like nothing was wrong. When I had to walk thru the plant they had mountain size piles of dead animals in the holding area and the stench was 10 times worse. It was a dirt road in and when I left, my tires carried the stench with me. I had to wash that car 3 times to get the stench off it.
