Third installment everyone, and if you're still reading it's because the name didn't scare you off, or you're too masochistic to stop reading, all the same. I'd like us all to take time out of our busy day to mourn for those who just had their entire lives come crashing down on them. No I'm not talking about people who've been foreclosed on and suddenly have no home. Nooo, not the people who got pink slips because the fat cats up in million dollar houses decided it was in their best interests to axe the middle class workers then take a .1% paycut. [Beware of the mini rants] I'm talking about the people who just found out that Starbucks along with an untold amount of business world wide use ground up bugs to color their food.
For those who just now found out about two lines up, yes, bugs have been used in coloring clothing and food for centuries-literally. Explorers in the 1500's discovered that the Aztecs ground up the Cochineal bug and used it to dye their clothing red-a dye that lasted an incredible amount of time. After that, cochineal powder became a rather popular export. This information-and indeed this rant, spawned from an online article that I read and a response to the article that I found.. wanting..
Now that you have the source, you have some perspective on the result which you are reading now. To cite a bit of my own comment: their are people in Africa eating cockroaches as big as your hand [my earlier estimation being an exaggeration], and you're getting pissy over some ground up bugs in your food? You can have either ground up bugs-bugs that are completely natural, healthy [bugs are rich in protein], and edible; or there's always the option of some artificial dye that would cost more then getting some bugs [which we have a never ending supply of, much to the chagrin of my bug issues]. As we all know, the higher the cost of production, the more they charge the stores; and the more they charge the stores, the more store's markup becomes which in turn means we end up paying more.
So let me expand on the hypothetical I posed in my comment, *Ahem*
If by some crazy stroke of luck the Mayans were right, are you gonna have mommy and daddy pick all the bugs out and off of your food when the ever-prepared survivalist/hunter brings meat back to town? And if you don't have a mommy and a daddy to do that for you, December 22nd is going to be the first in a long string of really sucky days for you.
I have a bug phobia, I'll admit that, it's not that uncommon of a phobia, besides, my brother wouldn't go down to my dad's pitch black basement without bring the dog when he was 16. Having bug issues at 19-nearly 20, is alright with me; on that note, not even I had a freak out over this discovery. My grandmother-mother's mother, for those curious, was born and raised on a farm. She didn't have the luxury of knit-picking what she ate or going out in the mud to feed the pigs, yadda yadda yadda, she dealt with it and she's in her 70's now. Kids eat dirt and glue in kindergarten and elementary school for the hell of it and you act like some ground up bugs are going to kill you, well they won't and do you know how I know? Because I'm not dead! You, the reader, are not dead; and I will guarantee the people bitching about the bugs aren't dead either because if they were dead they wouldn't be dragging their collective nails across my nerves like a root canal [no, never had one, but my mom had one, I heard all about it, that's enough for me]
I guarantee there is not a soul on this earth that has never eaten a bug throughout their lives, even if you don't know it. The coloring they're used in-carmine, cochineal extract, or natural red 4 is in more then you know, and you know why? Because ground bug is cheaper than lab made chemical no. 9 and what cuts production costs cuts down the price on the finished product. It's been used for centuries on vast amount of foods. Go ahead and search for foods with any of the aforementioned coloring ingredients in them, you may be shocked to find out what foods have the bug bits for coloring in them.
In short, this didn't just now happen the moment you found out, it's been happening. You didn't notice a buggy taste before, stop acting like you can see the bugs floating in your Tropicana. OH SHIT! Did I just ruin your favorite drink for you? Face facts, you've been drinking it for years and haven't died or had bugs sprout out of your stomach so stop acting like it could happen any moment.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go eat some tasty cherry cake with some yummy natural red 4
With a stomach full of bug bits and cake,
Alex The Foxboy
