Washington – Group Wants Insect Parts Out of Food Coloring

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    Washington – A watchdog group applauded a new labeling rule governing food coloring made from insect parts but its leaders still want the substance banned.

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    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new regulation, set to take effect in January 2011, that will require companies that use the dried bodies of cochineal insects to create food dyes to list the ingredient on their labels. Previously, foods containing cochineal usually listed only “artificial colors” or “color added” to note its presence.

    The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which lobbied the FDA on the subject, said the campaign was sparked by a University of Michigan allergist who discovered the additives cause severe allergic reactions in some people.

    The group lauded the FDA’s decision, but said the new rule does not go far enough in forcing companies to explicitly state on labels that the products contain insects. Officials with the watchdog group said that information could be important to people with dietary restrictions, including vegetarians and observant Jews and Muslims.

    The center said it is seeking to have cochineal products banned as food ingredients.


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    23 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    There is nothing wrong with these insect-derived food colorings. If they are used in kosher foods, there has to be good chasideshe hashgacha so there is no shaiyla regard whether they can be consumed by even the most machmir yidden.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    There is no kashruth issue here. Both the Igros Moshe and Masechta Chullin make clear that additives derived from insects such as cochineal insects (commonly used as a coloring in red grapefuit juice etc.) which are processed to the point they are more like chemicals than food raise no questions. As long as the product in question has a good Chasideshe hashgacha, there can be nq questions, even for someone who is machmir on kashruth.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    I hope the law requires them to write insect derived food dye on the ingredient list, and not just write carmine or cochineal extract. The name carmine sounds like a spice, however it is not a spice. Most people don’t know what cochineal is.

    I would also like to see laws requiring all foods including produce to be labeled with the country of origin. I want to see laws requiring all fruit and vegetables that have a wax or coating on them to have a sign next to them stating this, with the ingredients of the coating, and whether it is strictly vegan or not.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Well many kosher food have artificial colors in their contents. Does it mean there is a problem here? Someone with expertise should please explain. Thanks

    AH
    AH
    14 years ago

    I can’t claim familiarity with what it says in Igros Moshe on the subject, but the fact is that many reliable kashrus authorities do not accept carmine (another insect-derived coloring) as kosher. For example, at http://oukosher.org/index.php/common/article/industrial_bakeries/ :

    Carmine, or carminic acid, is a natural organic dye made from the dried bodies of female insects called Coccus Cacti which live on cactus plants. It is one of the oldest known natural dyes. Most of the major kashrus agencies accept the psak halacha that carmine is not kosher. (See Minchas Yitzchok, vol.3, 96). (See Hamodia, Kashrus Kaleidoscope, March 2005, for a more detailed discussion about food coloring).

    and at http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-palate-secretingredient.htm:

    Cochineal or Carmine is a natural red colorant extracted from the dried bodies of the coccus cacti insect which produces a highly stable natural red dye. Major kashrus agencies do not consider cochineal or carmine as a kosher colorant.

    Babishka
    Member
    Babishka
    14 years ago

    Does anyone remember back in the day when pistachio nuts were all colored bright red? They were imported from Iran, and when harvested the unprocessed nuts were unappealing gray color, so they were dyed red. Since pistachio growers in California use a bleaching process the red dye is no longer necessary.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Aside from the kashrut issue, having insect derived products in foods is imo disgusting. Even it can be proven to be kosher(which is in dispute anyway), I still don’t want it in my food. Why must food be colored anyway? Why can’t it be eaten in its natural color?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Anonymous Says
    I would also like to see laws requiring all foods including produce to be labeled with the country of origin. I want to see laws requiring all fruit and vegetables that have a wax or coating on them to have a sign next to them stating this, with the ingredients of the coating, and whether it is strictly vegan or not.

    Isn’t this the law already?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    “Why should it say “insect derived”? If someone doesn’t know what carmine or cochineal is, why should they care? The only purpose of putting “insect derived” is to make the product less appetising and scare people away from it. CSPI would want that because they hate all businesses and want to harm them, but why would you want it?”

    Why? because I want people who are interested in knowing what is in their food to get an answer they can understand. If food producers feel listing this on the ingredients list makes the product less appealing, then they shouldn’t use carmine. It is that simple.

    “And why do you need to know the country of origin?”

    Countries have different levels of government supervision over pesticides, fertilizers, and monitoring of toxic mineral levels in food. Some people might want to only eat food grown in countries with a good record for food safety.

    ” If you’re worried about the wax being treif (and all the major hechsherim say not to worry about it) then you can peel the fruit.”

    There is no worry about fruit grown in the US, since the waxes on fruits and vegetables grown here is either vegetable oil based or milk based(although perhaps some apples and other fruit that uses milk based wax might be milchig?)/
    Fruit and vegetables grown outside the US though might have wax that is made from ingredients of animal origin.

    “Why impose onerous labeling requirements that can put people off the product?”

    That is exactly the point. Products should be available without ingredients that people don’t want. With full disclosure, unwanted ingredients will be removed or else companies were suffer the consequences. Yogurt and fruit juice doesn’t need to have carmine in it.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Carmine is also used in many lipsticks. So is animal fat. I guess those women who keep kosher should only use a lipstick with a good hashgacha.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    “Are you really thick? Carmine makes a product more desirable. “

    Perhaps to you, but not to me. I won’t eat products with carmine, no matter how many rabbis say it is kosher. Imo eating carmine is disgusting.

    “People want natural ingredients because you and your CSPI friends have scared them away from artificial ones, “

    LOL! Yogurt with carmine in it is natural? That reminds me of the joke about the dog food that says all natural on it. When in nature does a dog eat a cow?

    “so natural colours it is”
    Why must it have any coloring added??????

    “The whole point of marketing is to make a product more desirable, so people will buy it. “

    So putting bug extract in foods makes them more desirable? How many people would be more interested in eating a product if they knew it has bug extract in it?

    “Making it an attractive colour improves it and is therefore good; reminding people exactly where it comes from makes it less desirable and is therefore bad. Is that so hard to understand?”

    LOL! So deception is a good thing? Form is much more important than substance? Should apples be painted red if they don’t look red enough?
    Should fruit have large labels placed on it, in a location to hide the blemishes on the fruit?

    “It’s just like Bismarck’s famous line about sausages and laws; if you like them you shouldn’t watch them being made. Do you want sausages to be labeled with exactly what’s in them, with pictures of the various parts to drive the point home? If you’re a CSPI nut you probably do, but most normal people don’t.”

    LOL! If you won’t like knowing what is in a food then you shouldn’t eat it. As someone who wants to know what is in my food, and often looks up the nutritional value of natural foods, I want my processed foods to be as natural as possible, and have the smallest number of ingredients possible. Must is my diet is natural foods.

    “Remember that manufacturers do not exist to serve the public, they exist to make money. They do that by producing something people want to buy”

    They should want to buy it based on disclosure, not based on deception.

    “They owe it to their customers to warn them about potential harm”

    What about spiritual harm? As someone who keeps kosher, you should understand the spiritual harm done to certain people by eating certain foods.

    “needlessly”?

    Why ever have the ingredients listed on any food products then? Let’s all be forced to eat what food manufacturers want to put in out food regardless of how offensive we find eating those ingredients are.

    “CSPI are a band of socialists who hate business on principle”

    LOL! A person has a right to know what is in a product they are considering buying. A vegetarian has a right to be able to avoid foods that are not vegetarian. Someone with food allergies has a right to avoid foods he is allergic to.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    “A word from FDA

    The list of colors exempt from certification are listed and described
    in 21 CFR 73. The ones approved for food, rather than animal feed,
    include: annatto extract; dehydrated beets (beet powder); caramel;
    -apo-8′-carotenal; -carotene; cochineal extract and carmine; toasted
    partially defatted cooked cottonseed flour; ferrous gluconate and
    ferrous lactate; grape color extract; grape skin extract (enocianina);
    fruit juice; vegetable juice; carrot oil; paprika and paprika
    oleoresin; riboflavin; saffron; titanium dioxide; and turmeric and
    turmeric oleoresin.

    Label lessons
    Under FDA regulations, any color added to a food product cannot be
    considered “natural,” no matter what the source, according to Penny
    Huck, associate director of technical services, Warner-Jenkinson Co.,
    St. Louis. That’s unless the colorant is natural to the food product
    itself — strawberry juice that gives strawberry ice-cream a pink hue,
    for example. If red beet color is used for strawberry ice cream, it
    would not be considered “naturally colored,” because beet juice is not
    a natural component of strawberries or ice cream.

    Carmine/cochineal extract.
    Carminic acid, derived from the shells of dried female insects
    (Dactylopius coccus costa) is the main pigment in carmine or
    cochineal. Cochineal extract contains approximately 2% to 3% carminic
    acid. Depending on the product and the pH, it produces colors in the
    orange to purple range. Carmine is the salt of the pigment, which
    produces a magenta-red shade. The water-insoluble lake forms of
    carmine range from pink to purple, and will have carminic acid
    contents of not less than 50%. In order to stabilize carmine at low
    pHs, an acid-proof version is manufactured.”

    answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/550467.html

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    I wouldn’t mind if yogurt has beet extract or annatto in it. Leave out the carmine though.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    “That reminds me of the joke about the dog food that says all natural on it. When in nature does a dog eat a cow?”

    In nature wolves eat alot of field mice and rats, you really want dog food made of that? That was a very poor example.