Oh, my God! Sometimes it is better not to know what you are eating. Prevention magazine came out with an article entitled "7 Grossest Things in your Food". I am thinking what's left and who can you trust?
Do you eat in the movie theatre? I haven't eaten there for a long-while ever since they futzed around with the popcorn and made it smell gross. I remember going into the theatre and the wafting of real butter drew me toward the concessions. Then butter became bad or expensive or something else and they replaced it with the new improved stuff that smells like bad chemicals. So now, if you think to yourself, well screw the popcorn, I will take something from behind the glass case....DON'T! According to Prevention magazine nearly everything there is steeped in beetle juice. I know, you are probably thinking, what.... how can that be? Well the hard, shiny shells on candies are often made from shellac, a resin secreted in the lac bug... the same stuff you use in varnishes and sealants... It is also on coffee beans, apples and other fruits and vegetables. So you think, you beat that one out by going organic? Not so... these waxes can be hard to remove so you will need to scrub. YUCK!
So you are feeling so sick by now you are reaching for the chicken soup. Bad news about that too. The chicken may be sicker than your are. Researchers from John Hopkins University tested bird feathers and found a laundry list of feed additives, including banned antibiotics, antidepressants, allergy medications, arsenic, the active ingredient in Benadryl, caffeine and other prescription and over-the-counter drugs. No wonder people have so many allergies. Allergies were things nobody ever heard of when I was growing up. For this you can go organic. Organic regulations forbid the stuff aforementioned. Who needs Prozac in your poultry.
Are you bothered by the fact that there is sheep oil in your chewing gum? I am not so much as I am about shellacking fruits, veggies and candies or Prozac in my poultry. It doesn't really burst my bubble. I will still chew it despite the lanolin from the sheep's wool. It is labelled in the ingredients as "gum base". Sorry I am not going vegan on my gum.
How about wood pulp in your cereal? Well, it is plant-based, I guess instead of chemically produced. Cellulose is usually made from nontoxic wood pulp or cotton and this cheap filler is stuffed into shredded cheese, salad dressings, and ice cream to thicken it without adding calories or fat. Cellulose is fibrous, which is why it appears in so many high-fibre "healthy" snacks and breakfast cereals... and it's even in organic products according to the Wall Street Journal. How do you avoid it, if it bothers you... well steer clear of terms like microcrystalline cellulose, cellulose gel, cellulose gum and carboxymethyl cellulose.
Religious Jews know about this one. There are cow enzymes in your cheese called rennet and so when they check out cheese they look for no rennet. Unfortunately, sometimes it is listed merely as "enzymes". Sneaky of them. So what is cow enzyme or rennet? It is extracted from the fourth stomach of newborn calves. Rennet is used as a cheese curdler, sometimes in tandem with another enzyme called pepsin, which is extracted from stomach glands of hogs.
Are you sick to your stomach yet? Well how about duck feathers in your dough? It's in bagels, cookie dough, bread, pies and more. How to avoid it? It might not be on ingredient labels, so you'll have to check with the manufacturer to find out if they use L-cysteine. You can also avoid it by eating products that are Kosher or gluten-free, or by baking your own bread.
Last but not least, are you a beer drinker? Because if you are, if you knew there were fish bladders in your beers, would it drain the "happy" out of happy hour? It is widely used in beer brewing process called isinglass, which is made from swim bladders of fish. It allows for a much clearer brew. I don't know if my friends in the beer business can advise me any further on that one. I don't think they would want their clientele to go to vegan beer.
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