Going directly into my files for "life is gross, but whatever," and "let's all eat more bugs," here's Bug Girl with a nice post on Skepchick explaining why we shouldn't necessarily freak out about food products dyed with insect extract.
It turns out insect-derived dye (cochineal) may be more sustainable, and is certainly no more weird, than the alternative, Red Dye # 40, which is made from petroleum. Yum.
Bugs or petroleum? Honestly, they both sound so delicious that I wish there were a way to enjoy them at the same time, in some sort of super-red food that was advertised with the catchy slogan "Now with more types of dye!"
Somebody should get to work on that.
I am a vegetarian these days, so I suppose in theory I should prefer the petroleum, but I'm honestly not as concerned about consuming bug bits as I am about bits of larger animals. Call me a hypocrite if you must.
This being so, and since there are bits of bugs in a lot of processed foods (check out the post's link on coffee and chocolate for exciting details on exactly how many insect fragments are acceptable in 100 grams of chocolate!), I'm really not very concerned about this.
No, I wouldn't just pick up a bug and eat it, unless I were really hungry or getting paid a lot of money, but if undetectable pieces of bugs are in the sweet, sweet candy I was going to eat anyway?
Whatever. It's still sweet, sweet candy. Hand it over.
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