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!
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.
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)
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.