FDA Considers New Rule On Bug Juice
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WASHINGTON – Never mind that fly in your soup. Consider the bugs that may be in your juice, yogurt, and eye shadow.
The Food and Drug Administration is deliberating a rule that would require food companies to state on their labels that the product contains an additive made out of bugs that, when crushed and processed, yields a rich red or a vivid orange color.
The additives, carmine and cochineal extract, have been used for centuries and come from a female beetle imported from Peru, the Canary Islands, Bolivia, Chile, and South Africa.
The agency said the beetle-derived ingredient is used in some 815 cosmetic preparations (most of which already are labeled). The additives produce the lovely pinks, purples, and reds that perk up juices, popsicles, cosmetic face blush, the cherries in fruit cocktail that little kids love, port wine cheese, artificial crab meat, strawberry milk drinks, caviar, a fruit-based aperitif, and other products.
Some Yoplait yogurt made by General Mills, for example, uses carmine. It is listed on the ingredient label, and the company said it had no plans to discontinue its use.
In the 1960s, the FDA, based on company testing, declared the substances safe. And companies at that time said they had received no adverse reports from the substances’ use.
It wasn’t until about a decade ago that medical reports surfaced showing that the additives can cause allergic reactions in some people, including flushing, hives, eczema, sneezing, and anaphylaxis, a severe, sudden allergic reaction that can result in death.
Though not widespread, the problem caught the eye of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The watchdog group and several physicians petitioned the FDA in 1998 to ban the additives or to at least list them and their insect derivation.
The FDA has taken a different tack. It proposed in January that foods containing carmine and cochineal extract list them on their labels. Retail cosmetics already must list them as ingredients, but the FDA proposal adds “professional-use” cosmetics and gifts or free samples that often come with promotions to buy cosmetics.
