How Bugs Find Their Way Into Your Food

Entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, has been getting a lot of media attention in recent years. Conservationists promote it as a solution to feeding an exploding global population. Insects, after all, are a high protein food source and dont impact the planet in ways that animals higher up the food chain do. Of course, news stories about insects as food tend to focus on the ick factor. While grubs and caterpillars are diet staples in many parts of the world, U.S. audiences tend to get squeamish at the thought of eating bugs. Well, heres some  news for you. You eat bugs. Every day. Even if youre vegetarian, you cant avoid consuming insects if you eat anything that has been processed, packaged, canned, or prepared. You are, without a doubt, getting a bit of bug protein in your diet. In some cases, the bug bits are intentional ingredients, and in some cases, theyre just by-products of the way we harvest and package our food. Red Food Coloring When the FDA changed food-labeling requirements in 2009, many consumers were startled to learn that manufacturers put crushed bugs in their food products for color. Outrageous! Cochineal extract, which comes from a scale insect, has been used as a red dye or coloring for centuries. Cochineal bugs (Dactylopius coccus) are true bugs belonging to the order Hemiptera. These tiny insects make a living by sucking the sap from cactus. To defend themselves, cochineal bugs produce carminic acid, a foul-tasting, bright red substance that makes predators think twice about eating them. The Aztecs used crushed cochineal bugs to dye fabrics a brilliant crimson. Today, cochineal extract is used as a natural coloring in many foods and drinks. Farmers in Peru and the Canary Islands produce most of the worlds supply, and its an important industry that supports workers in otherwise impoverished areas. And there are certainly worse things that manufacturers could use to color their products. To find out if a product contains cochineal bugs, look for any of the following ingredients on the label: cochineal extract, cochineal, carmine, carminic acid, or Natural Red No. 4. Confectioners Glaze If youre a vegetarian with a sweet tooth, you might be shocked to learn that many candy and chocolate products are made with bugs, too. Everything from jelly beans to milk duds is coated in something called confectioners glaze.   And confectioners glaze comes from bugs. The Lac bug, Laccifer lacca, inhabits tropical and subtropical regions. Like the cochineal bug, the Lac bug is a scale insect (order Hemiptera). It lives as a parasite on plants, particularly banyan trees. The Lac bug uses special glands to excrete a waxy, waterproof coating for protection. Unfortunately for the Lac bug, people figured out long ago that these waxy secretions are also useful for waterproofing other things, like furniture. Ever heard of shellac? Lac bugs are big business in India and Thailand, where they are cultivated for their waxy coatings. Workers scrape the Lac bugs glandular secretions from the host plants, and in the process, some of the Lac bugs get scraped off, too. The waxy bits are typically exported in flake form, called sticklac or gum lac, or sometimes just shellac flakes. Gum lac is used in all kinds of products: waxes, adhesives, paints, cosmetics, varnishes, fertilizers, and more. Lac bug secretions also make their way into medicines, usually as a coating that makes pills easy to swallow. Food manufacturers seem to know that putting shellac on an ingredient list might alarm some consumers, so they often use other, less industrial-sounding names to identify it on food labels. Look for any of the following ingredients on labels to find the hidden Lac bugs in your food: candy glaze, resin glaze, natural food glaze, confectioners glaze, confectioners resin, Lac resin, Lacca, or gum lac. Fig Wasps And then, of course, there are the fig wasps. If youve ever eaten Fig Newtons, or dried figs, or anything containing dried figs, youve no doubt eaten a fig wasp or two as well. Figs require pollination by a tiny female fig wasp. The fig wasp sometimes becomes entrapped within the fig fruit (which is technically not a fruit, its an inflorescence called the syconia), and becomes part of your meal. Insect Parts Honestly, theres no way to pick, package, or produce food without getting a few bugs in the mix. Insects are everywhere. The Food and Drug Administration recognized this reality, and issued regulations concerning how many bug bits are allowable in food items before they become a health concern. Known as the Food Defect Action Levels, these guidelines determine how many insect eggs, body parts, or whole insect bodies can get by the inspectors before being flagged in a given product. So, truth be told, even the most squeamish among us eats bugs, like it or not. Sources: The Truth About Red Food Dye Made From Bugs, LiveScience, April 27, 2012. Accessed online November 26, 2013.Scientists Make Red Food Dye from Potatoes, Not Bugs, National Geographic, September 19, 2013. Accessed online November 26, 2013.Calimyrna Figs in California, Wayne P. Armstrong, Palomar College. Accessed online November 26, 2013.Humans as Fig Eaters, FigWeb, Iziko Museums of South Africa. Accessed online November 26, 2013.Laccifer Lacca, Gwen Pearson (Bug Girls Blog), February 14, 2011. Accessed online November 26, 2013.Q A on Shellac, the Vegetarian Resource Group blog, November 30, 2010. Accessed online November 26, 2013.