We are drawn to eating food based on color, and so in a lot of processed foods, we get to eat dyes to satisfy our visual nature. In a bag of Wheat Thins Veggie Toasted Chips, you can consume 4 dyes: Blue 2, Red 40, Yellow 6, and Yellow 5.
The chips also have dehydrated vegetables, which you would think would be a good source of color. We are told, after all, to eat color through vegetables. But in chips that contain sugar, malt syrup, high-fructose corn syrup AND MSG, at least the dyes are the last ingredient listed.
Still, the idea of eating something horrible to satisfy a visual makes you want to eat your food with your eyes closed.
Starbucks customers found out recently they were eating something horrible to satisfy a visual: insects are used to achieve the red color in a Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino.
Eating insects, even dipped in chocolate, won't appeal to many, other than your Anthony Bourdain types or adolescent boys on a dare. Somehow, crushed up insects might be more plausible, but if you're a vegetarian, you would prefer that nothing die for your overpriced coffee drinks.
Grist weighs in with a very good point: eating insects is still better than consuming coal tar or petroleum. Jess Zimmerman notes that the alternative to cochineal (bugs) is Red 40 (coal tar/petroleum).
Where did we hear about Red 40? That's right: the Wheat Thins chips.
Put me down for those insects. Mmmmmm. Protein.
The other issue is why a drink that contains strawberries wouldn't provide enough red for you to love its color. After all, strawberries and milk in a blender will turn pink.
The strawberries come from strawberry puree concentrate. The white grape juice concentrate dominates the sauce, so perhaps the sauce doesn't have enough strawberries, or red ones at least.
If you see the ingredients on the sauce (see link above) and you know that cochineal extract means dried female cochineal insects, then you are aware. If you mindlessly order the drink, you would have no idea whether the red color came from strawberries, petroleum, or crushed dead insects.
Plant-based foods can supply needed color in foods so companies don't have to resort to insects or petroleum, but those probably cost more.
The insects are natural, even more natural than good ol' castoreum (beaver anal gland). The idea of drinking petroleum is gross, especially if it's only to get a product that should be red, more red.
You might upset people if you hold up a line in Starbucks asking them if their drinks have dead insects or petroleum, but you do have a right to know what is in your food and drink. Then you can decide is eating insects is right for you.
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