Jelly beans are covered in shellac (which is made from bug excretions)
Shellac makes things shiny, and shiny jelly beans are nice, so jelly beans are often coated in shellac. Shellac is also made from the excretions of the female lac insect. It's not bug poop, exactly, but for the purposes of sensationalism, I'm going to say that it is. You eat bug poop.
The number of insects you eat every year
It's inevitable that some insects are going to get into your food. Still, when you see in the actual FDA regulations that ten insects and 35 fruit fly eggs per 8 oz. of raisins is totally cool, it turns your stomach a little.
The 'nugget' isn't a chicken part
Hot dogs have a reputation for being made from the parts of the cow there's no way you'd eat (and that's probably true), but the chicken nugget should be the go-to example of gross meat products. Nuggets are made from "meat slurry," a liquefied meat product which is as appetizing as it sounds, and are then molded into the familiar shapes we all know. You could say it's an efficient way of using the whole chicken. You could also say it's totally gross.
Rodent hairs are allowed in your food
Are you enjoying some toast with apple butter right now? You might want to put it down. The FDA allows four rodent hairs per 100 grams. Curry powder, allspice, and ground pepper are also allowed to have more rodent hairs than you'd probably like to eat.
Meat is treated with carbon monoxide to make it look fresh
When you pick out that nice red steak at the grocery store, you're choosing it because it looks fresh, but will it taste as fresh? It's hard to know because a lot of meat is treated with carbon monoxide to keep it from turning color. That doesn't mean the meat is bad, but it does mean that it's not as fresh as you'd been led to believe.
1 in 4 meat samples is tainted with drug resistant bacteria
All food has some bacteria on it, but because of over-reliance on antibiotics in feedlots, livestock have developed a number of drug resistant strains of common diseases like staph infections. What's disturbing is that, according to NPR, a recent survey of meat in grocery stores found 1 in 4 samples contained these drug resistant bacteria.
A lot of meat that makes it to the supermarket comes from sick animals
As mentioned in the previous slide, the meat industry has become reliant on antibiotics. The reason? Poor diet and living conditions mean that many animals that make it on to our table were really sick. For example, 13 percent of feedlot cattle have abscessed livers.
Cheese is made from rennet, which is made from calf stomach
Rennet is a group of enzymes for digesting mother's milk and a crucial part of making cheese. Rennet for cheese making is obtained by slicing up a calf's stomach, soaking it in whey and wine or vinegar, and then filtering it. Gross.
Your ground beef may contain 'lean meat product' or other fillers
You're probably sick of hearing about "pink slime" and, frankly, so are we, but when you buy ground beef, you're sort of expecting that it was, y'know, a cut of beef that's been ground. Ammonia or no, it's gross to find out that what you're paying good money for has been cut with meat sludge.
Lots of other foods have ammonia too
The beef industry's response to "pink slime" has been "Look, lots of food has ammonia in it," which is actually less than comforting, but it's true that everything from processed cheese to cookies are made with ammonia and have been since 1974, although in many cases the ammonia is in a different form than the cleaning agent we're most familiar with.
Castoreum, a common additive, is made from beaver anal glands
Castoreum is an extract that shows up in baked goods, especially as vanilla flavoring. Delicious!
Salmon dye may be damaging your eyes
Wild salmon gets its distinctive pink color from its krill-based diet. Farm raised salmon, without access to krill, is not actually pink—rather, it's gray. Since no one wants to eat gray salmon, fisheries give the salmon a color boost by using artificial dyes in their feed. One such chemical, Canthaxanthin, has been linked to retinal damage in humans. Dyed salmon should be labeled as such in stores, but this law is poorly enforced. Ask your fishmonger to be sure.
Common food dyes may adversely affect kids
Common dyes, like Red No. 3, have been linked to hyperactivity in some children, though more conclusive testing is needed.
There's a lot more than beef, or pink slime, in school burgers
It turns out that the addition of pink slime isn't the only way school burgers are modified. A recent NPR study turned up 26 ingredients in the Fairfax County school burgers. One of those ingredients is meat, which is good, but they also contain the more worrisome ones like disodium inosinate, which is a close relative of MSG.
Your bread may contain an ingredient derived from human hair
L-cysteine, an amino acid, is a common ingredient used as a processing aid in bread products. The main sources for the manufacture of this additive are human hair and duck feathers. Yum!
Your salad dressing might have the heavy metal titanium dioxide in it
Titanium dioxide belongs in your paint and sunscreen not your food. Food manufacturers add it to things like salad dressing, creamers, and icing to make them appear whiter.
1 can of Coca Cola contains 10 teaspoons of sugar (more than an entire day's RDA)
This list has focused on things we might not know are in our food, and most of them are only vaguely harmful. But sugar pops up in most processed foods, and we know it's bad for us. Linked to diabetes, obesity, and heart disease, the amount of sugar in processed foods isn't just gross, it's making us sick.
Hundreds of thousands of children work on American farms every day
US labor laws exclude family farms, and big agriculture uses this loophole to exploit children for farm labor. Frequently, migrant farm workers face a dangerous and strenuous work environment where they're exposed to pesticides and harsh working conditions, but it is particularly alarming to know that children are doing much of this work too.
Facts for you, from The Hoff. Enjoy
:
Shellac makes things shiny, and shiny jelly beans are nice, so jelly beans are often coated in shellac. Shellac is also made from the excretions of the female lac insect. It's not bug poop, exactly, but for the purposes of sensationalism, I'm going to say that it is. You eat bug poop.
The number of insects you eat every year
It's inevitable that some insects are going to get into your food. Still, when you see in the actual FDA regulations that ten insects and 35 fruit fly eggs per 8 oz. of raisins is totally cool, it turns your stomach a little.
The 'nugget' isn't a chicken part
Hot dogs have a reputation for being made from the parts of the cow there's no way you'd eat (and that's probably true), but the chicken nugget should be the go-to example of gross meat products. Nuggets are made from "meat slurry," a liquefied meat product which is as appetizing as it sounds, and are then molded into the familiar shapes we all know. You could say it's an efficient way of using the whole chicken. You could also say it's totally gross.
Rodent hairs are allowed in your food
Are you enjoying some toast with apple butter right now? You might want to put it down. The FDA allows four rodent hairs per 100 grams. Curry powder, allspice, and ground pepper are also allowed to have more rodent hairs than you'd probably like to eat.
Meat is treated with carbon monoxide to make it look fresh
When you pick out that nice red steak at the grocery store, you're choosing it because it looks fresh, but will it taste as fresh? It's hard to know because a lot of meat is treated with carbon monoxide to keep it from turning color. That doesn't mean the meat is bad, but it does mean that it's not as fresh as you'd been led to believe.
1 in 4 meat samples is tainted with drug resistant bacteria
All food has some bacteria on it, but because of over-reliance on antibiotics in feedlots, livestock have developed a number of drug resistant strains of common diseases like staph infections. What's disturbing is that, according to NPR, a recent survey of meat in grocery stores found 1 in 4 samples contained these drug resistant bacteria.
A lot of meat that makes it to the supermarket comes from sick animals
As mentioned in the previous slide, the meat industry has become reliant on antibiotics. The reason? Poor diet and living conditions mean that many animals that make it on to our table were really sick. For example, 13 percent of feedlot cattle have abscessed livers.
Cheese is made from rennet, which is made from calf stomach
Rennet is a group of enzymes for digesting mother's milk and a crucial part of making cheese. Rennet for cheese making is obtained by slicing up a calf's stomach, soaking it in whey and wine or vinegar, and then filtering it. Gross.
Your ground beef may contain 'lean meat product' or other fillers
You're probably sick of hearing about "pink slime" and, frankly, so are we, but when you buy ground beef, you're sort of expecting that it was, y'know, a cut of beef that's been ground. Ammonia or no, it's gross to find out that what you're paying good money for has been cut with meat sludge.
Lots of other foods have ammonia too
The beef industry's response to "pink slime" has been "Look, lots of food has ammonia in it," which is actually less than comforting, but it's true that everything from processed cheese to cookies are made with ammonia and have been since 1974, although in many cases the ammonia is in a different form than the cleaning agent we're most familiar with.
Castoreum, a common additive, is made from beaver anal glands
Castoreum is an extract that shows up in baked goods, especially as vanilla flavoring. Delicious!
Salmon dye may be damaging your eyes
Wild salmon gets its distinctive pink color from its krill-based diet. Farm raised salmon, without access to krill, is not actually pink—rather, it's gray. Since no one wants to eat gray salmon, fisheries give the salmon a color boost by using artificial dyes in their feed. One such chemical, Canthaxanthin, has been linked to retinal damage in humans. Dyed salmon should be labeled as such in stores, but this law is poorly enforced. Ask your fishmonger to be sure.
Common food dyes may adversely affect kids
Common dyes, like Red No. 3, have been linked to hyperactivity in some children, though more conclusive testing is needed.
There's a lot more than beef, or pink slime, in school burgers
It turns out that the addition of pink slime isn't the only way school burgers are modified. A recent NPR study turned up 26 ingredients in the Fairfax County school burgers. One of those ingredients is meat, which is good, but they also contain the more worrisome ones like disodium inosinate, which is a close relative of MSG.
Your bread may contain an ingredient derived from human hair
L-cysteine, an amino acid, is a common ingredient used as a processing aid in bread products. The main sources for the manufacture of this additive are human hair and duck feathers. Yum!
Your salad dressing might have the heavy metal titanium dioxide in it
Titanium dioxide belongs in your paint and sunscreen not your food. Food manufacturers add it to things like salad dressing, creamers, and icing to make them appear whiter.
1 can of Coca Cola contains 10 teaspoons of sugar (more than an entire day's RDA)
This list has focused on things we might not know are in our food, and most of them are only vaguely harmful. But sugar pops up in most processed foods, and we know it's bad for us. Linked to diabetes, obesity, and heart disease, the amount of sugar in processed foods isn't just gross, it's making us sick.
Hundreds of thousands of children work on American farms every day
US labor laws exclude family farms, and big agriculture uses this loophole to exploit children for farm labor. Frequently, migrant farm workers face a dangerous and strenuous work environment where they're exposed to pesticides and harsh working conditions, but it is particularly alarming to know that children are doing much of this work too.
Facts for you, from The Hoff. Enjoy
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