Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Leanna Garfield. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know. Brace yourselves, America: Many of your favorite foods may contain bits and pieces of creatures that you probably didn't know were there.
How about some rodent dung in your coffee? Maggots in your pizza sauce? Mold in the jelly on your toast? Oh, and so sorry, chocolate lovers. That dark, delicious bar you devoured might contain 30 or more insect parts and a sprinkling of rodent hair. Called "food defects," these dismembered creatures and their excrement are the unfortunate byproduct of growing and harvesting food.
So while there's no way to get rid of all the creatures that might hitch a ride along the food processing chain, the FDA has established standards to keep food defects to a minimum.
Let's go through a typical day of meals to see what else you're not aware that you're eating. The coffee beans you grind for breakfast are allowed by the FDA to have an average of 10 milligrams or more animal poop per pound.
As you sprinkle black pepper on your morning eggs, try not to think about the fact you may be eating more than 40 insect fragments with every teaspoon, along with a smidgen of rodent hair. Did you have fruit for breakfast? Common fruit flies can catch a ride anywhere from field to harvest to grocery store, getting trapped by processors or freezing in refrigerated delivery trucks and ending up in your home.
Let's say you packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone's lunch. Good choice! Peanut butter is one of the most controlled foods in the FDA list; an average of one or more rodent hairs and 30 or so insect fragments are allowed for every grams, which is 3.
The typical serving size for peanut butter is 2 tablespoons unless you slather. That means each 2 tablespoon-peanut butter sandwich would only have about eight insect fragments and a teensy tiny bit of rodent filth. Unfortunately, jelly and jam are not as controlled. Apple butter can contain an average of four or more rodent hairs for every 3. Oh, and that isn't counting the unknown numbers of teensy mites, aphids, and thrips.
While it might make you cringe, the U. Food and Drug Administration has deemed these products totally safe due to the fact that some ingredients are grown, harvested or processed where there are just too many bugs to control. Sounds delicious, right? Unlike some food items, red lipstick is one of the products where bugs are used on purpose. Dead cochineal bugs are crushed, releasing a vibrant red hue to be mixed into lipsticks, blushes and even some food items like strawberry yogurt.
You can also find this shellac as a wood finish, primer and as the coating on most pharmaceutical pills. This may come as bad news for pasta lovers, but the FDA allows an average of insect fragments or more per grams of pasta one bug bit per gram! In the process of turning wheat kernels into wheat flour for pasta or bread or pizza , the FDA allows 32 or more insect-damaged kernels per grams and an average of 75 or more insect fragments per 50 grams.
No meal is complete without a sprinkle of seasoning and spices — and a dash of insect wings? Ground cinnamon can have an average of or more insect fragments per 50 grams, ground oregano can have an average of or more insect fragments per 10 grams and ground pepper can have an average of or more insect fragments per 50 grams.
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