The struggle is super real when you love food. No doubt we all love food that we know is bad for us more than healthy food. We still eat it, even if it’s just for an occasional cheat meal. No matter what kind of food you eat, prepare to learn some strange food facts. As the great R.L. Stine says, "Reader, beware, you're in for a scare!"
1. Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) is a preservative used to keep many food products from going bad. Fun fact, it’s also used in jet fuel and embalming fluid.
2. Titanium dioxide is used in paints and sunscreens. It can also be found in salad dressing, coffee creamers and icing to make the products appear whiter.
3. Why are jelly beans so shiny? Because they are coated in shellac. What’s shellac? Something that the female lac bug secrets.
4. Like pudding? What about raspberry or vanilla flavored things? If so, you’ve may have ingested a substance called castoreum aka beaver anal gland juice at one point in your life. You’re more likely to find it in your perfume or cologne now though.
5. Propylene glycerol, an ingredient in antifreeze, is approved for human consumption in multiple foods, sauces and other products by the FDA as long as it’s below a certain level.
6. Carbon monoxide is commonly used by manufacturers to give the packaged meat in your grocery store a fresh looking color.
7. In 2011 47 percent of meat and poultry samples from around the country tested positive for Staphylococcus aureus. Over half of those samples were antibiotic resistant, which is commonly called MRSA, or methicillin-resistant S. aureus.
8. The FDA considers tomato products edible if 15 percent of canned tomatoes and 45 percent of ketchup products don’t have mold in them.
9. The FDA also allows up to 30 fly eggs in 100 grams of tomato based sauces and two maggots in 100 grams of tomato juice.
10. Peanut butter is allowed to contain up to 30 insect fragments before the FDA will intervene.
11. The FDA is much stricter on actual peanuts, intervening if 5 percent of shelled or 10 percent of unshelled peanuts are contaminated by mold or insects. This is because toxic molds are very harmful to humans.
12. Up to 11 or more rodent hairs per 50 grams of cinnamon is allowable before the FDA considers it an issue.
13. Chocolate can contain up to 60 insect parts per 100 grams, with the average chocolate bar having around eight insect parts.
14. Since we’re in the peach state, frozen and canned peaches are deemed edible as long as there is less than 3 percent of the product that is wormy or moldy.
15. Under FDA regulations, a company can claim that its food has zero grams of trans fat as long as it contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving.
I don’t know about you, but I'm seriously grossed out. The FDA releases a handbook of allotted limits for food defects if you’re curious. What are your thoughts on the things that are allowed in your food?
