When I was in 5th standard we had a story in our English reader titled 'Look before you eat'.
The moral of the story was, you guessed it, to always look before you eat.
But in this modern age of packaged processed food there is no knowing what you might find if you do look at the printed stuff on the packaging before you eat it. It could be something funny or something scary.
So here goes my personal 'look before you eat' story. The other day while shopping I saw a rhubarb yogurt from Activia. Now we have all seen the yummy looking ads they show on TV, so I said to myself (being a good little consumer), why not try it!
Later that evening, after finishing dinner, I sat down with my Activia rhubarb yogurt in front of the TV. Maybe I was getting bored with what was on the telly or it was god guiding my hands, but I happened to look down at the yogurt pot in my hand (as yet unopened) and saw loads of stuff written in fine print.
That got me curious so I decided to read what it said.. and the funny thing was the first thing that caught my eye was a warning: Not suitable for vegetarians (see pic).
The moral of the story was, you guessed it, to always look before you eat.
But in this modern age of packaged processed food there is no knowing what you might find if you do look at the printed stuff on the packaging before you eat it. It could be something funny or something scary.
So here goes my personal 'look before you eat' story. The other day while shopping I saw a rhubarb yogurt from Activia. Now we have all seen the yummy looking ads they show on TV, so I said to myself (being a good little consumer), why not try it!
Later that evening, after finishing dinner, I sat down with my Activia rhubarb yogurt in front of the TV. Maybe I was getting bored with what was on the telly or it was god guiding my hands, but I happened to look down at the yogurt pot in my hand (as yet unopened) and saw loads of stuff written in fine print.
That got me curious so I decided to read what it said.. and the funny thing was the first thing that caught my eye was a warning: Not suitable for vegetarians (see pic).
Now that made me even more curious, I mean what could be there in rhubarb yogurt that made it not suitable for vegetarians?
So I went through the list of ingredients and one word leaped out (see pic): Cochineal.
Now that didn't sound chemical, didn't sound fruity, didn't sound meaty. The word cochineal sounded just plain alien. Something about it set of my 'research instincts' and I opened up Google on my phone (Google is our friend!) to find out what exactly is this cochineal stuff.
The result was anything but boring!
As per Wikipedia: "The cochineal (/kɒtʃɨˈniːl/ koch-i-neel or /ˈkɒtʃɨniːl/ KOCH-i-neel; Dactylopius coccus) is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the crimson-coloured dye carmine is derived"
In other words the Activia rhubarb yogurt contains a dye that is extracted from insects. Thus making it unsuitable for vegetarians (?) where as us non-veggies are not expected to be bothered by insect-origin ingredients. Hell, isn't a chicken a really really large and feathered insect?
;)
P.S.: Not all Activia stuff is 'not suitable for vegetarians'. Their strawberry one is 'suitable for vegetraians'. From now on those three words are going to be my guide whenver I try new products.
