Sunday, August 13, 2006

Strawberry Yoplait yogurt is colored with crushed bugs

CRUSHED. FREAKING. BUGS.
We're eating crushed bugs. I'll have a yogurt -- light on the bugs please.
AOL Money
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...

6 comments:

The Merry Widow said...

I know that in ancient times those particular bugs were used for clothing dye! But food? I thought the USDA was supposed to protect us from food contaminated by bugs!

tmw

Purple Avenger said...

The FDA just specifies the "bug content". This is a partial list of FDA "defect action levels"

Broccoli, frozen: (insects and mites) Average of 60 or more aphids,thrips, and/or mites per 100 grams.

Date material (chopped, sliced, macerated): (insects) 10 or more dead insects in 1 or more sub-samples or 5 or more dead insects (whole or equivalent) per 100 grams.

Macaroni, noodle products: (insect filth) Average of insect fragments equals or exceeds 4.5 per 225 grams in 6 or more sub-samples.

Peanut butter: (insect filth) Average of 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams.

Raisins: (insects and insect eggs) 10 or more whole or equivalent insects and 35 Drosophila eggs per 8 oz. of golden bleached raisins.

Wheat flour: (insect filth) Average of 75 or more insect fragments per 50 grams in 6 sub-samples.

nanc said...

i don't eat yogurt and haven't for the last twenty + years.

i know that ice cream has something in it they put in transmission fluid and eat very little (perhaps the equivalent of four scoops a year) of that also.

thinking about giving up food altogether...

nanc said...

p.s. my husband eats grubs. says they are a great source of protein - too bad you'd probably have to eat four or five hundred of them to realize any good from them. no thanks; i'm not that kind of indian.

The Merry Widow said...

Nanc- Make your own ice cream, then you say what goes in it! Tastes better too! Makes what OMIN told me, over at MadZ's,much more sense now! I know if you put bay leaves in flour and pasta keeps weevils from hatching, but if we have such good technology...guess the American consumer really is just a cash cow!
Maranatha!

tmw
My Grandmother always said you had to eat a peck of dirt before you die, she had it nailed!

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