Bugs in Your Food (NY Times)
As it turns out, there really may be a bug in your soup.
The Food and Drug Administration has finalized a rule that will require food companies to list cochineal extract and carmine on the label when they are used in food and cosmetics. But the new rule contains one glaring omission. It doesn’t require companies to tell you that the ingredients come from a bug.
Cochineal extract and carmine, used to dye food, drinks and cosmetics various shades of red, orange, pink and purple, are extracted from the dried bodies of the female cochineal bug.
The F.D.A. typically doesn’t require color additives to be named on food labels. For years, the bug extracts “have been hidden under the terms ‘artificial colors’ or ‘color added,’ ” according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group says the extracts are commonly used in reddish-colored foods and beverages, including fruit drinks, ice creams, yogurts and candies.
However, the F.D.A. required the ingredients be listed after University of Michigan allergist Dr. James L. Baldwin reported that some of his patients suffered severe allergic reactions to the bug extracts. After C.S.P.I. petitioned the F.D.A. in 1998, the group also received several dozen adverse-reaction reports from consumers.
In a statement, the group criticized the ruling, noting that labels should make it clear that the extracts come from bugs. They argue that people with allergies who want to avoid the foods for health reasons are well aware of what the ingredients are made from. But vegetarians and people of certain religious faiths who would typically avoid a bug-based product may not be aware of the origins of the extracts without more disclosure on the food label.
But the F.D.A. said that the labeling rule that requires companies to just list the name of the ingredient and nothing else gives “adequate information” to consumers who want to avoid the bug-based colorants for religious or dietary reasons. The new rule will take effect in 2011.
A deep crimson dye is extracted from the female cochineal insects. Cochineal is used to produce scarlet, orange and other red tints. The insects are killed by immersion in hot water (after which they are dried) or by exposure to sunlight, steam, or the heat of an oven. Each method produces a different color which results in the varied appearance of commercial cochineal. The insects must be dried to about 30 percent of their original body weight before they can be stored without decaying. It takes about 155,000 insects to make one kilogram of cochineal. There are two principal forms of cochineal dye: cochineal extract is a coloring made from the raw dried and pulverised bodies of insects, and carmine is a more purified coloring made from the cochineal. To prepare carmine, the powdered insect bodies are boiled in ammonia or a sodium carbonate solution, the insoluble matter is removed by filtering, and alum is added to the clear salt solution of carminic acid to precipitate the red aluminium salt. Purity of colour is ensured by the absence of iron. Stannous chloride, citric acid, borax, or gelatin may be added to regulate the formation of the precipitate. For shades of purple, lime is added to the alum. The water-soluble form is used in alcoholic drinks with calcium carmine; the insoluble form is used in a wider variety of products. Together with ammonium carmine they can be found in meat, sausages, processed poultry products (meat products cannot be colored in the United States unless they are labeled as such), surimi, marinades, alcoholic drinks, bakery products and toppings, cookies, desserts, icings, pie fillings, jams, preserves, gelatin desserts, juice beverages, varieties of cheddar cheese and other dairy products, sauces, and sweets. The average human consumes one to two drops of carminic acid each year with food.
Cochineal is one of the colors that the Hyperactive Children's Support Group recommends be eliminated from the diet of hyperactive children. Natural carmine dye used in food and cosmetics can render it unacceptable to vegetarian (or vegan) consumers, and many Muslims and Jews consider carmine-containing food forbidden (haraam and treif) because the dye is extracted from insects.