Here are 7 foods that contain the cochineal PARASITE for it’s color:
🔴Starbuck’s Raspberry Swirl Cake, Birthday Cake Pop, Mini Donut, and Red Velvet Whoopie Pie
🔴Kellogg’s Fruit Loops cereal and Fruit Snacks.
🔴Tropicana
🔴Betty Crocker’s red velvet cake mix
🔴Nesquik Chocolate Cookie Sandwich (Strawberry) and Nestle Wonka Nerds
🔴Skittles
🔴Danone yogurt strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry flavors
😲 Sidenote: It takes 40,000 of these bugs to create 1lb of dye.
Cochineal has been around since the 16th century. It was what we bought as red food coloring when I was a kid in the 50s-60's. Is it better or worse than the Red 40 that is now used for baking and such? That is a synthetic product made from petroleum byproducts. Or Red 2 which is derived from coal. As I understand it, and I know you can't believe everything you read, the harm regarding human consumption of insects is from consuming the exoskeleton not from soaking the dead insect in an acidic alcohol solution to create the carminic acid which is the basis of the color. https://www.livescience.com/36292-red-food-dye-bugs-cochineal-carmine.html
The Truth About Red Food Dye Made from Bugs | Live Science
If the idea of eating red food dye made from bugs grosses you out, consider that if it doesn't come from a bug, it may come from something worse.
https://www.livescience.com/36292-red-food-dye-bugs-cochineal-carmine.html
