I was looking around the Instructables website, basically a user based “how to” resource. One of the postings is entitled: How to eat fewer insects. It explains how candy manufacturers use bug guts and excrement in their products. From the posting….
Just about every kid raised in the US in the last thirty years has eaten these (Nerds). And yet, just look at what’s in the list of ingredients: Carmine. Carmine is a pigment produced by cochineal insects, which are ground up and purified to produce the pigment. A less purified form of the pigment, called cochineal extract, is also sometimes found in foods.
Because carmine is a “natural” (not synthetic) additive, government regulations on its labeling are lax, which is quite surprising since some people may suffer severe anaphylactic shock upon eating these or other insects. Not all products containing carmine label it at all, some merely say “added color,” “natural color” or (also surprisingly) “artificial color.”
Confectioner’s glaze, food glaze, resinous glaze, and pharmaceutical glaze are pretty names for shellac, the excretion of a certain type of beetle. While perhaps that’s not so very different from honey, the difference is that shellac is harvested beetles-and-all. (Yum!)
I have fond memories of eating Good & Plenty as a kid; however, those were somewhat colored (pink?) by recently noticing what’s on the label: carmine and shellac, this time disguised as “RESINOUS GLAZE.”
Of course this could be a joke, but if it’s true, it just goes to show that sometimes ignorance is bliss!
Nope, not a joke.
Carmine, apart from being an Italian name, it is a pigment obtained from some sap sucking bugs that live on cacti. This pigment is also used to dye clothing.
BTW that resinous glaze you’re talking about? It also comes from a sap sucking bug, honey which is plant nectar sucked by bees and then barfed into beesweat (aka beeswax) containers, difers from resinous glaze because resinous glaze is DEFECATED BY THE BEETLE.
Well, compared to pork rinds, pigs feet, ‘balut’ (duck embryos in the shell), menudo… bugs are not all that bad.
Definitely true – often used for any sort of food coloring where pink or light red color is wanted. The book Fast Food Nation discusses this additive as well as some other crazy stuff that goes into our food.
What’s wrong with pork rinds. Delicious.
Cochineal was not only central to several important wars between Native American nations — it was the focus for plunder for a number of Spanish expeditions to the New World. It was the only fast red dye for centuries.
I don’t get the problem. There’s bug guts in nearly all foods.
Well, some candy is like hotdogs… you just don’t want to know the ingredients. 😉
This is most definitely true. Well.. I shouldn’t say that for certain. However, a few months ago the Wall Street Journal reported on the Cochineal Extract being used in other pink food-items. Specifically, I remember them telling of it being used in Grapefruit juice.
Unfortunately, the article can only be purchased from the online addition. Perhaps someone has a hardcopy they could share?
The article:
“Is There a Bug in Your Juice? New Food Labels Might Say”
Jane Zhang; The Wall Street Journal; Eastern edition; Jan 27, 2006; B.1;
This is all bull crap. Get a life people. Better yet, go have a beer or three. Hey wait? What is beer made of. Well, there are all these little animals called Yeast swimming around eating the sugar. Then they excrete alcohol. Mmmmm, yummy alcohol, straight from the yeast’s butt. But hey, that’s fine because beer is good for you, not like some processed product from an insect.
Don’t they say that people swallow ten spiders a year in their sleep (or something like that)? Have you ever swallowed a bug riding on your bike?
At least the candy is sweet…
I once ate a salt and vinegar flavored grasshopper, worst thing in the world, dry and it was really horrible, the point is does it really matter what you eat? I mean if it taste like nerds, then eat it. I mean have you seen what they do to cows? or what part of a pig is put in hot dogs, i mean almost all the food you eat, would probably taste better if you didnt know what the process was to create it.
At least if you’re eating a cow, you know you’re eating a cow and can choose to avoid it. Same with a hot dog.
Christ, I’ve known that since I was… 7? something like that anyhow.
MOST red coloured products have this in. So what?
Thiers some bugs in the story!
This reminds me of hot dog manufactures while they don’t purposely add insects into the hotdogs.. there is a limit to how much they will allow.
I think via some FDA guideline. So if a fly or a roach happens to get into the hotdog making machine, it’s okay as long as it’s below some sort of FDA threshold. How they even measure that is anyone’s guess.. which leads me to believe they don’t unless it’s something obvious like the facility is infested with insects.
Why doesn’t this bother me a bit? Not sure, but it just doesn’t.
When I visited Thailand, it was common to see street venders with big platters heaped with roasted whole bugs.
I couldn’t get myself to eat one but I’m kind of sorry I didn’t try. Those who have say they’re kind of tasty.
Next on fear factor- Can they eat now and later’s ????
50 or 60 years ago everyone new that red food dye was made from beetles. The sad part is just how little people know now compared with back then.
Remember that Futurama episode “Love and Rocket”? They showed that the ingredients for the candy valentine hearts were bone meal and earwig honey. Its sad when truth emulates satire.
From where does gelatin come again? All of our food comes from some other living source, none of which really matters as long as it’s not going to directly kill you.
Hey-
You forgot one.
Carnuba wax is in red candies and made from squished bugs.
Hey-
You forgot one.
Carnuba wax is in red candies and made from squished bugs.
Comment by Mallie — 9/21/2006 @ 9:50 am
Hhmmm, dear, it comes from a tree.
More disturning then the candy witch i always new was crap was the tropacana greap fruit juice. IVe gotten quite sick drinking that and now i know why.
Alot of people would buy that thinking it was healthy. Why dont they jsut use grapefruit. Corperate F)#@(%rs
Shrimps are bug and I don’t see you guys complaining.
Shimp dosen’t have six legs retard.
Yeah they do, genius
Um…Shrimp have more than six legs genius, and shrimp are NOT considered as bugs -__-
And SPINACH thinks it has problems lol…haha…hehe..
In response to the comment above mentioning that all red food dye is derived from bugs, this is simply not true. Red food dye # 40 is not the same as carmine. I am so allergic to carmine, but red 40 is no problem. Only recently have more companies begun to use carmine. Dannon yogurt switched from Red #40 to carmine in Sept. 1999 for your information. I think they believe it just sounds healthier than red #40. It’s just deceiving customers, who’d probably rather eat a #40 something than ground up beetles!
Ha, HA HA , Carmine… Why bother to label it as THAT??? Fruitopia, an all-natural soft-drink has “cochineal extract (for colour)” in the ingrdients list. Ah well… at least it’s organic….
What is so gross about this is the INTENTIONAL use of bugs and their extracts, and disguising this disgusting trick with other names it is in general a softening of food names to make it seem less related to a being that once lived:
-> carmine/cochnieal extract/
“natural color” vs. Beetle extract
-> beef vs. Cow meat
-> milk vs. Cow breast milk
-> veal vs. baby cow meat
-> shellac/food glaze vs. Beetle extract
-> Foie Gras vs. Enlarged Duck Liver
-> Bacon, Ham vs. Pig meat
Other extracts go unlabled since the FDA seems them as GRAS Generally Recognized As Safe, such as Beaver Anal Gland Extract used “as a raspberry flavor” (from VegNews Magazine)
Beaver anal gland extract is used as “natural vanilla flavor”, not raspberry.
Dietitian – There are historical reasons to names such as beef, mutton and pork. This is not meant to disguise the source.
http://www.krysstal.com/borrow_normanfrench.html
In 1066, the Norman king, William the Conquerer, invaded England. Many Norman French words entered the language after this. In general, the Normans were the nobility, while the native English were their servants. The names of domestic animals and their meats show this relationship. The animal name is English (“cow”, “sheep”, “pig”) while the names of the meats derived from these animals is French (“beef”, “mutton”, “pork”).
And shellac
[Origin: 1705–15; shell + lac1, trans. of F laque en écailles lac in thin plates]
Lac is the name of the family of bug it comes from.
Fois Gras –
French for “Fat Liver”
Try looking the words up before you spew your vegan/vegetarian conspiracy theories.