Pink in Strawberry Yogurt Comes from Crushed Bugs

just lovely

Ewwwww

It's all Bush's fault.

Snopes says this is TRUE

(I love this site. Snopes rocks!)
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[link to www.snopes.com]

Claim: The food colorants cochineal and carmine are made from ground beetles.

Status: True.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2001]

There is a book out very recently that claims the red color of strawberry milkshakes comes from a tropical beetle ground up for its red coloring.

Origins: Next
time you're browsing the supermarket in search of the makings of that night's dinner, pause a moment to read the ingredients labels of your favorite red-colored ingestibles and cosmetics. Chances are, you'll discover a notation for cochineal, carmine, or carminic acid, pigments whose origins might surprise and possibly disgust you.

Cochineal and its close cousin carmine (also known as carminic acid) are derived from the crushed carcasses of a particular South and Central American beetle. These popular colorants, which today are used to impart a deep red shade to fruit juices, gelatins, candies, shampoos, and more, come from the female Dactylopius coccus, a beetle that inhabits a type of cactus known as Opuntia.

Dactylopius coccus was the source of a red dye used by Aztecs and Mexican Indians for centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. Those indigenous peoples would collect cochineal insects, briefly immerse them in hot water to kill the beasties and dissolve the females' waxy coating, and then dry them in the sun. The desiccated insects would then be ground to a fine powder.

The Spaniards immediately grasped the potential of the pigment, so these dried insects became one of the first products to be exported from the New World to the Old. Europeans took to the beautiful, bright scarlet colour immediately both for its vibrant hue and for its extraordinary colorfast properties, ensuring that boatloads of cochineal insects would make the trans-Atlantic trek.

Today cochineal has been surpassed as a dye for cloth by a number of synthetic pigments, but is still widely used as a coloring agent for a number of foodstuffs, beverages, and cosmetics (because many of those synthetic dyes proved dangerous to humans when taken internally or allowed to leach into the body through the skin). It takes about 70,000 insects to make one pound of cochineal.

While cochineal is used in a wide variety of foods, it is not found in kosher products because Jewish dietary laws prohibit the inclusion of insects or their parts in food. The "ewww!" factor nothwithstanding, cochineal is a safe food colorant aside from a few rare cases of allergic reaction.

Another red dye used in foods, FD&C Red Dye #40 (alternatively known as Red #40), is often mistakenly assumed to be a euphemism for cochineal or carmine. It's not — it's bug-free and is actually derived from coal.

Our distaste at the thought of ingesting bugs is based on cultural factors rather than the properties or flavors of the insects themselves. Western society eschews (rather than chews) bugs, hence the widespread "Ewww!" reaction to the news that some of our favorite foods contain extract of beetle.

Barbara "mop topped" Mikkelson

Has been for years Cochineal and its derivatives have been used in cooking since God knows when - oooolllldddd news.

That's why you get Cascade Fresh, or some other ORGANIC yoghurt. The color in organic foods comes from actual FRUIT.

Ewwwww is right... wherd ya get that av from browneyedgirl?

So what is wrong with that? Beetles are natural, aren't they?

Is the coloring harmful? Nothing to indicate that it is.

So what's the problem?

Gotta laugh, the amount of toxic artificial crap most people eat today and they go squeemish over a few beetles!

No more real AV because people suck ass

yeah but the eggs are disgusting

Arent bugs a good source of protein?

Campari too.

You do realize that in most societies, bugs are considered a very good food source. In the bible, John the Baptist survived on locust (grasshoppers). I think it is time for everybody in the US to get a grip on reality, and it is not what you have been taught.

TMI

yuck, you just had to go and spoil my favorite treat.. THANKS BUDDY

yup, known about this for years. but really, we eat all kinds of insects in our foods. there is an acceptable level for such things. they are there and we eat.

I was handling those machines. my boss always warned us to not eat one of them entirely because they have drug like effects. So we did and got a bit out of control, the creatures need to be crushed alive so it was a bit difficult to handle that, many times they ran all over the place and we were very happy with the crushing sound, like leisure-time, only that the stuff often squirted out on many places, it looked like yogurt all over the factory walls and colleagues of mine got reddish glowing eyes from that, which is still much better as when their eggs snatch inside of your brains

it's just some extra protein

So this is way nasty,

but eating cows and other animals is okay right?

Oh the double standards of humanity.

More interesting is the fact the strawbeerry aromes in yoghurt are made of rotting bark, paper, cellulose in general.

so? its natural and non toxic.

that and the fact that yogurt is mainly just bacterias on rotten dairies - funny thing tho, that's actually really good for your digestive tract.


Seriously, people, if this grosses you out that much, you might as well just stop eating practically anything; in the end, most of it is pretty "disgusting", but that is just nature for you.

I'm more concerned about the added sugar in strawberry yoghurt than I am about the color.

While I agree on that statement, I would like to point out, that there is a difference between natural processes and human processed food. Nature does not need money.

For sure...

Then again, if you really think deeply about it, even man made is "natural" in a way, for it is our nature in our ways.

But, let's not get into semantics and philosophy here.

Whew! I just hope I never learn that the red artificial color in candy is from blood.