Jul 242012

I wonder how much of that table, if you dig really, really deep, has something in it that someone will find revolting.

From the vast number of news articles about vegetarian and vegan products, to news about “pink slime” and cochineal beetles used as food coloring, consumers are being overwhelmed with news about what goes into products.  This is good from a knowledge perspective, and bad because a lot of it is hype.  Wired has been doing this for years, typically with a one- or two-page bit in the magazine called “What’s Inside?

The Wired blurbs tend to be interesting, but often stories carried as “news” are a bit more concerning.  Where the What’s Inside? articles are generally matter-of-fact, the news articles often carry some bias.  This all came to a head for me today when I read this gem on ABC’s ABCNews Go site today.  It discusses the “7 grossest things in your food,” and the writer even believes some are possibly worse than pink slime.  But are they really?  Americans have spent decades becoming more disassociated from their food even while we consume greater and greater quantities of it.  Of the seven listed items, the only one that truly concerns me is Prozac and other medications found in poultry.

Ok, I get it.  That’s really not good.  Though I would imagine that most of those compounds lose their efficacy upon cooking.  But the other six?

Yes, rennet is an enzyme from a cow’s stomach and is used to make cheese.  Rennet  isn’t a man-made chemical, and has been used in cheese making for a very, very long time.  Actually, according to the post linked in the last sentence, it IS man-made these days, which actually makes it vegan as far as I can tell.  Still, even if natural rennet is not always vegan, is an enzyme from a cow’s stomach somehow not vegetarian?  it’s not meat.  if you can drink milk, you can consume enzymes in my book.

And oh noes!  There’s lanolin in gum?  It’s sheep oil?  Collagen from a fishes bladder in beer?  Beetle resin on my candy?  First, you’ve probably been consuming these things your whole life, and prior to being granted this knowledge thought these were delicious consumables.  Second, a lot of people might freak out about duck feathers in dough-based products, then go and eat a Big Mac.  Seriously people?  Duck feathers are far more natural than a McDonald’s patty, and probably much better for you.  If it’s what works…

Remember, lots of people around the world eat testicles and crazy looking things from the ocean.  If a little extra fiber via wood pulp in your bran cereal is enough to make you lose your mind, you should probably just at lettuce.  Organic lettuce.  From the farmer’s market.  That was grown on rainbows and love.

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