Pink slime part two: Americans eat beaver glands and insects without knowing | The Daily Caller

Pink slime part two: Americans eat beaver glands and insects without knowing


Published: 12:35 PM 06/19/2012


By Ryan Lovelace - The Daily Caller

In this Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011 file photo pre-K student Titus Bailey waitd in line for his lunch tray at West Hamlin Elementary School in West Hamlin, W. V. The nation’s school districts are turning up their noses at “pink slime,” the beef product that caused a public uproar earlier this year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the vast majority of states participating in its National School Lunch Program have opted to order ground beef that doesn’t contain the product known as lean finely textured beef. (AP Photo/The Herald-Dispatch, Lori Wolfe)





If the old saying “you are what you eat” is true, then most Americans are a combination of beaver glands, the shells of desert beetles and wood pulp, among other things.
While the pink slime scare from earlier this year has mostly subsided, Reader’s Digest compiled a list of six food ingredients you didn’t know you were eating that will make even the strongest stomachs churn.
Among the ingredients on the list are the perineal glands of beavers, which are used as fruit or vanilla flavoring in some gum, candy, gelatin and pudding.
Furthermore, the shells of desert beetles are often used as red food coloring for fruit juices and candy, and the female Lac beetle provides the “confectioner’s glaze” used to make candy and fruit shine.
The FDA, perhaps amazingly, takes little issue with the inclusion of these ingredients in your diet.
The FDA thinks 19 maggots and 74 mites in every 3.5 ounce can of mushrooms is permissible, Forbes reported earlier this year, but finds raw milk to be out of line.