How to eat fewer insects

Step 2 The big secret: Look at the ingredients.

Just about every kid raised in the US in the last thirty years has eaten these. 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.

Carmine, also called carminic acid, is a powerful red pigment that is found in a wide assortment of places where crushed insects (presumably) do not belong: Yoplait strawberry yogurt, Tropicana grapefruit juice, Campari, maraschino cherries, and it might make you question just why pink lemonade needs to be pink.

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."

Comments

[paper warrior]

by a strange coincidence ia was eating a Yoplait strawberry yogurt upon reading this

[oskay]

Yesterday, my neighbor at the lunch table had Albertson's yogurt, it's there as well.

[nitrosoda]

carnauba wax is the main ingredient in "Turtle Wax" car wax ... YUM