Food companies might advertise natural flavors, low calories and vitamins, but they’re much less likely to promote their use of beaver anal glands, maggots or human hair.

You may have heard of Starbucks’ use of crushed beetles in food coloring for its frappuccino products, which it had falsly labeled vegan, but that is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bug parts and rodent feces that we consume in our food every day.

Here are a few examples of FDA approved rodent and insect parts found in common foods:

Red Dye: Ground Up Beetles

Between yogurt, maraschino cherries, jams, cakes, and tomato products, you’ve probably consumed at least one pound of red dye in your life. That means that you’ve also ingested at least 70,000 cochineal beetles, which are crushed up to make red dye.

Ice Cream: Beaver Anal Glands

Vanilla and raspberry flavors might be enhanced by “castoreum,” a mixture of the anal secretions and urine of beavers. That’s right, beaver urine. This FDA-approved product is categorized under “natural flavoring,”so you won’t know if you’re eating it.

Jello: Animal Connective Tissue

Gelatin is made from collagen, which is boiled down animal connective tissue. Today, gelatin most likely is made from pigskin.

Bread: Duck Feathers and Human Hair

L-Cysteine is an amino acid often used in dough conditioners, which softens mass-produced breads. It is made from human hair or duck feathers. Although 80 percent of L-cysteine is made of human hair, McDonald’s uses the duck feather variety in its Baked Hot Apple Pie and Warm Cinnamon Roll.

Mushrooms: Maggots

The FDA says its legally OK to have up to 19 maggots and 74 mites in a 3.5-ounce can of mushrooms.

Chocolate: Rat Hairs & Bug Parts

No! Not Chocolate!  The FDA allows one rat hair per 100 grams in six 100-gram subsamples of chocolate and 60 insect fragments per 100 grams in six 100-gram subsamples. So the next time you bite into a piece of chocolate, chances are you are eating rat hairs and a whole lot of bugs.

Produce and candy: Bug excreations

Shellac is made from secretions of the slug like bug Laccifer lacca, which secrete a waxy resin covering for both protection and waterproofing.  That’s what’s harvested to make shellac.

Oranges, lemons and apples are coated by using shellac to extend the shelf life of the product and giving it a shine which other natural products cannot. Sweets are coated with shellac to achieve a high gloss and a hard surface and also for protection against moisture.

What Can You Do To Minimize Your Exposure To Anal Glands, Urine And Bug Parts?

In the US, most of us actually have lots of choices about our food consumption–which of these might you choose?

• Stop eating food that is pre-prepared and pre-packaged. That way you’ll know exactly what goes into your food.

• Be willing to accept some damage to food (a blemish on your apple, bread without preservatives that goes moldy in a week) so that fewer chemicals are used in search of perfection.

• If you can, join a community garden and learn how hard it is to grow food.  Discover that fruit with a little insect nibble on it still tastes pretty good.

• Accept that insects will occasionally get into food, and that the convenience of having packaged food outweighs the knowledge that something with more than four legs might be in it.

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Referances: http://membracid.wordpress.com, www.businessinsider.com, www.themastervegan.com, http://fda.org/