Top 10 Crazy Ingredients In Your Favorite Products
#10: Sawdust
Do you know why, when you buy a prepackaged bag of shredded cheese at the store, the cheese isn’t clumping together? The answer is sawdust. Well, actually it’s cellulose, but cellulose is a fiber starch and is very often derived from actual wood sawdust. And it isn’t just used in shredded cheeses either. From tomato sauces to cake mixes to even some cereals, cellulose is a pretty common ingredient in the food industry. The good news is that the stuff passes right through humans without hardly being absorbed. Although ingesting too much cellulose can produce bloating and gaseous side effects.
#9: Human Hair & Duck Feathers
If you’re out at a restaurant and you find hair in your food you’re likely to call the waiter over and send it back, right? Well, turns out you’ve been eating human hair for years without knowing it - as well as duck feathers and other less than appealing ingredients. L-cysteine is an amino acid often used as a dough conditioner and as a tool for extending the shelf life of pre-packaged commercial bread. And how is said amino acid made? Well, there are various methods, but many involve the use of human hair or duck feathers. Cow horns and pig bristles can also be used. Just in case you needed another reason to buy your bread from a local bakery.
#8: Whale Vomit
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Whale vomit and perfume aren’t usually thought of as having much in common, but turns out they do. Ambergris - an ingredient often used in perfumes as a way to extend the pretty scent - is whale vomit. Okay, maybe not actual whale puke, but it is a waxy substance that forms in the digestive tract of Sperm whales - so definitely at least whale vomit adjacent. Even more interesting is how smelly it is when it’s fresh, and it isn’t till it ages a bit that it acquires the more pleasant odor that makes it so sought after by perfume makers. The good news for us - and sperm whales - is that much, but not all of the ambergris these days has been replaced with a synthetic alternative.
#7: Sand
As so many online dating profiles have indicated, people love walking on the beach. We love the warmth of the sun and the feeling of the sand on our feet. But how many of us love to reach down, grab a little pinch of that sand and put it in our mouth? Well, like it or not, that’s pretty much what we’re all doing when we eat certain food products. Silicon dioxide, or silica, is the largest element of sand and, due to its ability to absorb humidity, is used as an anti-clumping agent in foods. Some beverages also use it to keep foaming under control as well.
#6: Boiled Bugs
Those fake red flowers, that red lipstick and eyeshadow, your Strawberry Frappuccino from Starbucks… What do all these things have in common? They all have dead, boiled bugs in them - or at least they used to (Starbucks stopped using them after blowback from customers). You see, to get that red color many products will use a pigment known as carmine. And carmine is also often called cochineal because in many cases it’s extracted from the cochineal scale insect through a process of boiling them in an ammonia or sodium carbonate solution. In the United States, the FDA requires companies to indicate the use of said pigment as either "cochineal extract" or "carmine."
#5: Shellac
It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that shellac is used as a finish on wood - in fact, that’s probably what we recognize it most for. But not only does it produce a nice glossy, sealed finish to that dining room table, it’s also used to do the same thing to many of the foods you eat as well. Jelly beans and hard candies are often coated with a food-grade shellac. Even apples are sometimes recoated with the stuff to replace the fruit’s natural wax which is cleaned away during the washing process. And just to add a little more “crazy” to this one, the resin used to make shellac comes from secretions of the female lac bug.
#4: Beaver Secretions
When it comes to classic TV we say “Leave it to Beaver.” But when it comes to castoreum in some perfumes and food products we say ‘leave it to beaver’s butt.’ What is castoreum you ask? Well, it’s a yellowish fluid extracted from beaver's castor sacs located in quite close proximity to their bums. As you might imagine, getting the stuff isn’t super easy, and therefore it isn’t cheap either. Which is one of the reasons you’ll find it used more frequently in perfumes rather than food. However, knowing if it’s in a food product isn’t easy since companies are allowed to indicate it simply as “natural flavoring” rather than castoreum or our suggestion: beaver butt juice.
#3: Antifreeze
Do you know how they make antifreeze? Usually it’s made by mixing additives with distilled water and a base of either ethylene glycol or propylene glycol. And while none of us would ever drink antifreeze, it’s come to our attention that we’re pretty much all ingesting propylene glycol throughout our lives. Besides its lubricating abilities which make it useful in the production of condoms, PG also has moisture absorbing properties that make it helpful for use in cake mixes and some ice creams.You’ll also find it in some sodas, artificial sweeteners and even salad dressings. It’s also one of the main ingredients in the e-liquid found in e-cigarettes.
#2: Animal Skin & Bones
In the 1960’s we were told that “There's always room for Jell-O.” We guess that sounds more appealing than “There's always room for animal skin and bones.” What are we talking about? Well, Jell-O is a gelatin dessert and gelatin is most often produced from collagen extracted from various animal skin and bones. While it can be produced from fish, most gelatin comes from pork skin and bones as well as cattle bones and hides - often provided via leftovers from meat production. And to not just single out Jell-O, let’s not forget about other gelatin-using food items like Gummy bears and marshmallows.
#1: Silly Putty
What do your Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, your McDonald’s chicken nuggets and your serving of KFC mash potatoes and biscuits have in common with Silly Putty and Kinetic Sand? Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Also known as dimethylpolysiloxane or dimethicone, polydimethylsiloxane might be hard to pronounce, but apparently this silicone isn’t hard to digest. Yes, we said silicone. Which, with its elasticity and viscosity makes it a major component of Silly Putty. However, it also has anti-foaming abilities which has led to fast food companies using it in their cooking oils to alleviate splatter during cooking. Oh, and PDMS is also used in the production of condom lubricants. We might never look at our Wendy’s french fries the same way.
