14 Things You Really Don’t Want To Know About Your Groceries

[jberryhill]

3. I don't understand the point of several of those

"Red- and pink-colored products are often dyed with cochineal extract, aka the bodies of crushed-up teeny insects."

Yes, those beetles have been used for red coloring by humans for thousands of years for everything from food to paint. Is there a problem with it?

"Many ice creams are thickened and stabilized with carrageenan, which is actually a seaweed extract."

Holy fuck! Something from a plant is in my FOOD! The sugar in ice creams comes from an extract of a grass too. So?

"This is how the ingredients for packaged veggie burgers get mixed together:"



Okay. Is it supposed to be mixed by elves in small bowls or something? It looks like someone in a sanitary facility wearing a sanitary outfit to mix ingredients in a sanitary container using a sanitary implement. What is mixing a hundred pounds of ingredients together supposed to look like?


"Not-from-concentrate orange juice is processed with “flavor packs” to artificially ensure that each bottle tastes exactly the same."

This one is cute, as it goes on to say - "Because the added flavor is technically derived from orange oil and extract, it doesn’t need to be specifically listed in the ingredients."

OMFG! They are putting stuff from ORANGES in ORANGE JUICE! How is that even legal!

"Most commercial milk is made by combining, heating, homogenizing, and repackaging the milk of hundreds of cows."

Repackaging the milk of hundreds of cows? You mean it's not sold IN THE COW? This, above all of them, is the real head-scratcher on the list for me since it is the one in which I have direct experience. I worked for local dairy farmer as a teenager and I did not realize at the time, how horrific it was that when we put the milking machines to work on the cows, all of the lines were going to the same tank. I had no idea there was a "one cow per bottle" rule.

Greek yogurt manufacturing produces millions of pounds of (toxic) acid whey waste every year, and no one knows what to do with it.

Why single out "Greek yogurt" here. This is true of ALL yogurt, as well as ALL cheese. Does anyone know what "cheescloth" is, and why it is called "cheescloth"? Because the process of making cheese - all kinds of cheese - has for thousands of years depended on using a fabric sieve to pull the curds out of the whey and separate them.

"Maraschino cherry producers bleach the fruit with chemicals and then marinate it in huge vats of corn syrup and dye to turn the cherries red again."

I want to see a head count of everyone who thought maraschino cherries came from marashino cherry trees. Bleached? With chemicals? I insist they start bleaching them with something other than "chemicals".

Seriously, where is the chucklehead who thought maraschino cherries were some kind of natural product.

Next thing, you'll tell me that Swedish Fish aren't really fish and don't come from Sweden.

"Hot dogs are filled with a gloopy blend of meat trimmings, fat, and starch or “cereal filler.”

OMG, it's "gloopy". I can't imagine how anyone can tolerate something "gloopy" being used in manufacturing SAUSAGE.

Shredded cheese is packed with cellulose — aka refined wood pulp — to keep it from clumping.

Anyone who buys "shredded cheese" is, in my book, too stupid to care what is in it. A grater costs next to nothing, and will pay for itself pretty much the first time it is used to shred cheese, instead of buying it in.... a plastic bag... made from chemicals.