SCIENCE / HEALTH - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
What's in My Food? |
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by Pallavi Gogoi Business Week Online Entered into the database on Monday, August 14th, 2006 @ 15:29:15 MST |
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Few people know that the food coloring listed as cochineal extract
comes from female beetles. Food activists want to spread the word.
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.
You won't find "crushed bugs" on the list of ingredients for any
of these foods, however. Companies have a bit of latitude in describing exactly
what they put in our food. Many larger companies, such as General Mills, the
manufacturer of Yoplait and Pepsi, the maker of Tropicana, identify the dye
in their products as either carmine, or cochineal extract. Still, many companies
simply list "artificial color" on their ingredients list without giving
any details.
Food activists are trying to change disclosure requirements. The Food &
Drug Administration has received numerous complaints over the issue and is now
in the process of considering a proposal to require color additives like the
cochineal extract to be disclosed on the labels of all foods that use them.
"Hopefully we'll see something by the end of the year," says Michael
Jacobson, executive director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest,
a food advocacy group in Washington, D. C.
ALLERGIC REACTIONS. Jacobson says that consumers want to know
what they're eating. Some are allergic to bug extract; others are vegetarians.
"The food product should indicate that it comes from insects so that vegetarians
at least can avoid the product," he says.
Carmine may be the least of food activists' worries. It is known to cause allergic
reactions in just a small percentage of the population. Food producers sometimes
add much more dangerous chemical additives to make their products look attractive
(see BusinessWeek.com, 3/27/06, "Hershey:
A Sweeter Bid").
Indeed, who would think that chicken, eggs, and salmon are often artificially
enhanced to look more appetizing to consumers? The plump, juicy chicken sitting
on the supermarket shelf is likely to have been fed canthaxanthin, a pigment
added to chicken feed to enhance poultry's yellow color and make it look palatable.
And egg-laying hens are also given a dye along with their feed, making egg yolks
vary in color from light yellow all the way to bright orange.
IN THE PINK. Farmers can have their pick from a color chart
that goes from the numbers 1 to 15, coinciding with colors from yellow to red.
The yellow color comes from xanthophyll and carotenoids in the feed absorbed
through the intestine, metabolized, and deposited in the egg yolk. In an article
published last year, R. Scott Beyer, a poultry specialist from the Kansas State
University, recommended different levels of xanthophylls, depending on what
color of yolk is desired. He says 23 mg of xanthophyll per pound of feed results
in a "medium orange" color.
The fresh, farm-raised salmon that shoppers buy also get their orange-red hue
from eating the chemicals astaxanthin and canthaxanthin. Wild salmon are pink
because they eat shrimp-like creatures called krill. But to achieve the same
pink color, farmed salmon need chemicals, which are mixed with their feed. In
the past couple of years, the European Union significantly reduced the level
of such dyes that can be fed to salmon because of concerns that the dyes, at
high levels, can affect people's eyesight.
Two years ago, in the U.S., Seattle law firm Smith & Lowney filed two class
actions against grocers Kroger and Safeway in Washington and California, contending
that they should disclose that their salmon are dyed pink. Both lawsuits got
thrown out of court. However, Knoll Lowney, a partner at the law firm, says
that the lawsuits raised enough public awareness that many grocers voluntarily
use "color added" labels to their salmon.
Still, Lowney says that such dyes are totally unnecessary. "This is a
growing problem because the food companies are using more artificial means to
enhance the appearance of the product and make it appear like something that
it is not," he says. A walk down the grocery aisle for processed food is
an eye opener—the bacon and ham get their red tint from sodium ascorbate,
an antioxidant and color stabilizer, and the Betty Crocker icing gets its bright
white color not from natural cream and egg whites but from titanium dioxide,
a mineral that is also used in house paints. Betty Crocker manufacturer General
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