Gross Food Ingredients

Monday, Aug 31, 2020, 7:51 pm

By:Tony Williams

1.Liquid smoke

Even though this does sound gross you will have undoubtedly had some liquid smoke if you have ever eaten anything that is classed as being smoky. This includes barbecue products, but there is just something about the fact that liquid smoke has been used in the process of making certain products, but then how else would they be able to get that taste?

2.Cellulose

Cellulose is not actually used that often in food, but then it is made from cotton or wood pulp, so surely it is a good thing that we often decide now to bother including it in the ingredients? In actual fact it is more common for it to be used to make paper, but when it comes to food you can find it in things such as shredded cheese where it stops the strands from sticking together.

3.Carmine

If you have some food that has red coloring in it, then it may include carmine. At first this does not sound too bad until you discover that carmine is actually from boiled cochineal beetles and surely that has to be seriously gross? Is there a big pot full of them getting boiled? How did we find out this worked for red dye in the first place?

4.Sand

Yep you got it right, silicon dioxide, which is also known as sand, is used in various foods. The reason? It does something to the flow of the food and stops things from just becoming lumps and getting stuck. This can be most commonly found in the likes of salt and even soup and how surprised would you be if you realized you were eating sand when you thought it was cream of chicken?

5.Sodium benzoate

Sodium benzoate is used as a preservative and it is most commonly found in those soft drinks you love as well as jams, salad dressings, and even pickles. You can often tell it is in there due to you getting a stinging sensation in your throat and this is actually the salt version of an acid, but without it things would just not be the same.

6.Castoreum

Relax because this is not about a beaver being put into food, as that would just be a bit too much and would mean it was not vegetarian, but it is all about castoreum. This is something that comes from the castor sac sweat glands in the beaver and it is used as a food flavoring. The problem here is it comes from near its ass!!

7.Pink slime

Pink slime is when you take the meat that has been blasted off the bones, pureed, and then treated with ammonia and it is something that is often used to bulk up meat products and apparently make them look better. However, this stuff just sounds gross, so that is why it is included in this list because boy does it deserve to be there.

8.Ammonia

People know that ammonia is horrible stuff as it is in cleaning products, so why is it also in our food? The answer is simple. They include it in meat in order to kill off various germs, so even though it sounds gross, and it is, at least it is being used for a good enough reason.

9.Viruses

This is going to be a strange one for most people because they will be confused as to the reasons why they put viruses on our food? Surely that is something we should avoid? In actual fact they do it mostly with meat that is put into packets and it is all to do with preserving them, but it is still pretty horrible and gross to imagine it.

10.Shellac

Shellac is the ingredient that makes certain sweets appear to shine as can be seen here with jelly beans. However, even though it makes them look nice you have to think carefully about what it comes from because in actual fact it comes from the secretions of an insect in Thailand. Yes that's right it comes from insects!!

11.Mechanically separated meat

This even just looks horrible and that is before it is explained as to what it actually is. Basically, they use high pressure to force off all of those last bits of meat hanging onto the bones, but there are often bits of it in there with this then being used to bulk up certain foods even though some countries have banned it.

12.Gelatin

Gelatin looks nice as it is what you have in jello and it just helps to make it wobble a bit. However, it may make things look cool, but you are probably not aware of the fact that it comes from a protein that they will get from the skin of animals. Now you are looking at this in a completely different way.

 Share on facebook

Share on twitter

 

Related Content