10 GROSS Things Companies Are ALLOWED to Put in Our Food!

- I'm thirsty.
OK, sheep secretions, oh, oh God.
Pink slime is about as appetizing as it sounds
and if you're in the United States,
chances are it's in some of your meat products.
Pink slime is made form all the bits of meat,
that get cut from the beef alomg with fat.
In order to separate the meat and fat,
it gets simmered down and then spun in a centrifuge.
After that, all the bits are pushed together through a pipe
and treated with ammonia to kill any bacteria.
Just talking about it is starting to gross me out.
It's then dyed pink, in order to look like real raw beef,
formed into blocks and frozen,
before it's sent off to food processing plants.
Pink slime is used as filler in a lot of meat products,
just like ground beef.
Now, just how much of it is used is up for debate,
with some estimates as high as 10 billion pounds per year.
Back in 2012, an ABC News investigation
claimed that nearly 70% of ground meat product,
being sold in grocery stores was actually pink slime.
Luckily, it's banned from use in countries like Canada
and the European Union, but it still exists in some places
and you're eating that pink slime, yum, yum, yum.
Considering how many ingredients
on any processed food label that there are,
that I can barely pronounce,
silicon dioxide probably wouldn't stand out.
It also goes by silica, it may sound harmless enough,
but it's actually sand, yeah,
like, "Let's make a sandcastle,
"the entire beach is made from it", sand.
It's actually used as an anti-caking agent
in almost anything from salt to coffee creamer
and even peanut butter.
The sand absorbs any extra moisture in food products
and stops them from clumping together.
It also occurs naturally in plants like beets,
peppers and brown rice
and fortunately, it doesn't seem to have any negative,
longterm effects on human beings,
but rather than stirring up all the sand in our bodies,
our kidneys take on the job of filtering it
all the way back out.
Interestingly the FDA, the World Health Organization
and the European Food Safety Authority
have labeled it as safe,
so long as you don't eat more than
2% of your meal's weight in it,
so in other words, don't go eating bowls of sand,
'cause you're gonna be, not pooping,
you won't be pooping at all, you'll just, you'll die.
Few things are as simple and satisfying
as ice cream on a hot day,
but you'll probably want to opt for another treat soon,
because a lot of the ice cream, that you eat
is actually flavored with castoreum,
otherwise known as beaver anal glands.
Castoreum is a brown, hold on,
castoreum is a brown, slimy substance,
that's basically a mix of urine and anal secretions,
that's taken from the castor sacs
of mature North American and European beavers.
The sac is found right under the beaver's tail,
right by its butt and for some reason,
it apparently smells really good.
Still wouldn't wanna lick it.
It's actually been used by humans for centuries
and today it's used in a lot of perfumes.
It's also considered safe for humans to eat.
It's actually really common in strawberry,
raspberry and vanilla flavored foods
and since it comes from an animal
and is not made from chemicals,
it can actually be labeled as naturally-flavored.
This is good ice cream, what is that, beaver anus?
So the chances are that you've probably already eaten it,
but it probably wasn't the natural flavor
that you were hoping for, was it?
Hm-mm, or maybe it was, sicko.
If you ever thought that your fruit punch was red
from all the natural strawberries and raspberries,
that are in it, think again.
Carmine is that vibrant red color
you find in anything from ice cream to Skittles
and it's actually made from insects.
Cochineal beetles are dried out, ground down
and boiled in ammonia to release the carminic acid.
The signature red is created when it's mixed with aluminum.
It's supposed to be safe for humans,
but after reports of some people
suffering from major allergic reactions,
it's now required to be clearly labeled
as an ingredient on foods.
In fact, in 2012 Starbucks was in hot water,
when it moved away from using artificial ingredients
and went natural by using carmine
in its Strawberry Frappuccinos.
After a vegan website started a petition against them,
Starbucks agreed to stop putting bugs in their drinks
in April of 2012 and said
that they'd go with real strawberries instead
and this whole time you thought
you were having a real strawberry, no baby, bug shells.
If you've ever found a hair in your food,
you might wanna convince yourself that it's your own,
but if you're like me, you might just have to suck it up
and accept it's definitely not.
In boxes of macaroni and cheese,
one rodent hair per 50 grams is allowed
and one hair per 100 grams is allowed
in chocolate and peanut butter
and apparently it's even more common in making spices.
In fact, ground sage has the highest allowance
with nine hairs per 10 grams, mm-mm
The FDA-allowed amounts of rodent hair
is a small enough amount to not be harmful to humans
and it's labeled as a natural contaminant.
Human hair is also found in food, but not by accident.
When broken down, human hair contains an amino acid
called L-Cysteine and it's used in commercial bread products
to give them longer shelf life.
Local bakeries likely don't use it,
since it's not added to flour,
but it is common in buns and bread items
at fast food restaurants.
Oh, your hair bun, sir, enjoy.
Chewing on gum can be a pretty satisfying habit,
that is until you find out what's making it so chewy.
Lanolin is commonly added to gum to make it soft
and it comes from sheep wool secretions, yummy.
It's also known as wool grease
and it is a natural occurrence in wooly animals,
that produce the oily substance
through their glands in their skin.
Lanolin is made when the wool is sheared from the sheep
and washed in hot water with a special detergent,
that will remove the wool grease.
Mmm, wool grease.
It's then spun in a centrifuge to separate the grease
from the dirt, skin cells (laughs)
and anything else that's stuck in there,
but you might better recognize it
as what it's commonly referred to, which is gum base.
It's also used in vitamin D3 supplements,
in case you were wondering.
Since it's naturally waxy and waterproof,
it's a great lubricant and is used
in a lot of cosmetics and baby products.
It's also used in expensive skincare products
as a treatment for eczema and wounds.
But you've most likely been chewing it all day long.
Mm-mm-mm, oily gum, num nums.
Have you ever bought shredded cheese
and wondered why it seemed a bit, you know, dusty.
Well, it's not just extra cheesy goodness,
but actually cellulose,
or as it's most commonly known, sawdust.
The sawdust is from virgin wood pulp
and is used in shredded and grated cheese
to stop it from clumping together.
In 2016, an investigation by the FDA
found that some Parmesan cheese brands,
that were claiming to be 100% real
contained up to almost 9% wood pulp,
but it's not just cheese that can come with a side of wood,
it's also in baked goods, ice cream and crackers
and even as filler in meat products.
I think I'm starting to see why people don't eat meat.
It's pretty cheap for food manufacturers
and extends a product's shelf life.
It can also act as fiber
and because of its absorbent properties,
it's used to lower fat content.
It's supposed to be safe for humans,
but the USDA has said that at least in meat,
any more than 3.5% cellulose
and a product is no longer nutritionally sound.
You hear that?
So don't think you're gonna lose weight
by going out and (gnashing) just eating a tree,
it's gonna mess y'all up.
OK, we're talking about poop again.
I'm all for a little extra flavor and whatnot,
but animal poop is definitely not the same as ciratra.
In the FDA subtly-named Defect Level Handbook,
over 100 foods are listed,
along with the maximum amount an item can be contaminated,
before a food manufacturer has to get rid of it
and animal poop, or as they call it, mamillian extreta,
is one of those contaminants.
The guidelines basically say that whether
it's when the food is harvested, being prepared in a plant
or all the times it gets transported,
it's impossible not to get a little extra bits in it.
Mouse droppings in particular are actually pretty common.
In most herbs and spices, only one milligram
per pound is allowed, which is basically no trace.
However, the highest levels are allowed in wheat,
which can have nine milligrams of poop per pound,
in cocoa beans with 10 milligrams per pound,
but let's be honest, really,
any poop is too much poop, in my opinion.
Tinned food is great for keeping food
from rotting over long periods of time,
but there's a price to pay for that luxury
and the cost is maggots.
It turns out that maggots and other bits of insects
aren't that rare in our tinned food.
According to the FDA, up to 20 maggots are allowed
in 100 grams of drained mushrooms
and maggots aren't the only things
living in your canned goods.
Insect eggs, particularly from fruit flies,
are often found in maraschino cherries,
canned tomatoes and citrus fruit
and what's most disturbing is that the FDA rules
get pretty particular.
For example, one cup of citrus juice can have one maggot,
but not if it already has five or more insect eggs,
now that would just be crazy.
Mushrooms also attract mites and up to 75 mites
are allowed per 100 grams.
The same goes for canned and frozen spinach,
which have 50 mites, so long as there aren't larvae
over three millimeters long already in there.
Here's a, you know, a reasonable question,
who's measuring these things, ooh!
It's one thing not to want to waste any food,
but this is taking that to a whole other level.
Mechanically-separated meat, or MSM,
is also known as mechanically-deboned meat
and it's less about separating all the meat,
that gets used in our food from the animal's body
and more about mushing everything together.
Basically, after an animal is butchered,
all the leftover pieces of meat and connective tissue,
including bits of bone and cartilage
are smashed together and forced through a sieve
at an incredibly high pressure.
This forms a white meat paste
and is used in products like hotdogs and baloney.
There was controversy that some fast food joints
were using it in their chicken,
but almost all of them now use all white meat.
MSM poultry and pork is still used in human food,
but because of all the bacteria,
mad cow disease became a big concern
for mechanically-separated beef
and it was eventually banned, thank God, ugh.
But as always, thank you guys so much for watching this
and if you enjoyed it, or you just learned something,
maybe you laughed a little bit, drop a Like on it
and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet.
I'll have a brand new video for you tomorrow
at 12 West Coast Time, three Eastern Standard Time,
so make sure you come by then,
have a great day, I'll see you, bye!

10 GROSS Things Companies Are ALLOWED to Put in Our Food!

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