Are You Bugged Out By Starbucks ?

[MegalosSkylaki]

Well are you?

Seems like like Starbucks' decision--it claims--to please customers who wanted it to go more au natural has landed it in distate with some Vegans when a Barista who worked for the coffee n' grub giant noticed the ingredient list of several of its products--both food and drink--were made from Bugs. Well at least the dye was.

The Barista ratted them out [ For more info about Ratz see
Sunday Morning in NY and GOOD MORNING Everybody. ]to a ....
Well read about it below>>

Starbucks draws flak over dye made from bugs

By Allison Linn

Starbucks has landed in hot water with some vegetarians over a decision to use a food coloring made from crushed bugs in products including its Strawberries and Creme Frappuccinos and red velvet whoopee pies.

The coffee giant recently started using cochineal extract, which is made from crushed insects, as a food dye in products that are pink or red in color.

Spokesman Jim Olson told msnbc.com the company switched to the extract in response to customers who wanted Starbucks to use more natural ingredients whenever possible....[More to follow]

SEE>>>--Bottom Line - Starbucks draws flak over dye made from bugs

[no1_vern]

Actually, no. I eat more bugs in a week from my vegetables than I could ever drink from Starbucks. I had no idea people could be so squeamish over eating/drinking food

and FTR, yes, I still go to Starbucks, its my favorite spot to chill or talk to some friends.

[Taxmancometh]

Crushed bugs? What will people pay for these days?

[Bizkitkid2001]

Crushed bugs? What will people pay for these days?

Whats funny is that it was the Starbuck's customers that forced them to switch to crushed bugs in the first place

This looks like a case of Starbucks not being able to please everyone.

[MegalosSkylaki]

Whats funny is that it was the Starbuck's customers that forced them to switch to crushed bugs in the first place

This looks like a case of Starbucks not being able to please everyone.

The way I look at it, can you please anybody?

Hmmm...come to think of it....in the future....Starbucks keeps expanding

Imagine a distant Planet where Mankind has placed its footsteps and Starbucks has followed....say the planet Klendathu ....an outpost Starbucks stands ready...



Have I been watching too much Science Fiction

Well Have I ?

[no1_vern]

Crushed bugs? What will people pay for these days?

It is simply unrealistic for us to get ALL the insect pieces(well all of the pesticides/chemicals/insect & rodent pieces/feces) off our food. Do you buy ANY processed food? ANY vegetables or fruits? ANY kind of drink? ANY ground meat? ANY milk? Its all contaminated.

The University of Ohio did a study and found that every body eats around 2 pounds of bugs each year.
O, my, look what I just found: FDA Allows Bugs In Your Food: Food Must Reach 'Defect Action Levels' To Be Labeled Unsafe

Simply put, there has to be a certain amount of bugs or bug parts in your food before it's deemed unsafe, but a little bit is totally fine. For example, manufacturers can't allow more than 225 bug parts in 225 grams of pasta. Any less than 225 parts in that batch is ok for the FDA.

Most of the time, this does not mean these foods are unsafe and in order to be on the list of these foods, the "defects" (what the FDA calls bugs and rodents) have to have been found to cause no health hazards.

Realistically it's impossible to eliminate all bugs from food grown outdoors, no matter how small the manufacturer -- but there is a certain ick-factor involved with the idea that there could be maggots in your food in any amount or form.

Yep, they repeated what I just said!
Chocolate deserves its own little article.

Allergy sufferers who react to chocolate might be shocked to learn their allergy could be linked to something other than the cocoa bean: an allergy to cockroaches.

An average of 8 insect parts are found in a chocolate bar and deemed safe, according to the FDA’s guidelines.

For some reason, I really think the HuffPost article is directly related to the *$s issue, but I cant prove it. But, people can(and probably should, I guess) worry about washing their hands before eating.

Come join me in my hobby: IAF What is Entomophagy?

[surreal]

Actually, no. I eat more bugs in a week from my vegetables than I could ever drink from Starbucks. I had no idea people could be so squeamish over eating/drinking food

and FTR, yes, I still go to Starbucks, its my favorite spot to chill or talk to some friends.

And you don't have to tip them.

The University of Ohio did a study and found that every body eats around 2 pounds of bugs each year.

Free food is free food!

[Chuckiechan]

Do you buy ANY processed food? ANY vegetables or fruits? ANY kind of drink? ANY ground meat? ANY milk? Its all contaminated.

Natural foods are worse. Be sure the rinse the chicken crap off your strawberries. And most of the insects are served right along in your salad. If they are dead, they are very hard to wash off.

Having said that, insect contamination is a normal part of be a human who eats things. Everything eats.

You just see the big ones..

[tony_j15]

Only in America would we reach the point of being so disconnected from where food comes from and what it is that people would complain about bugs.

[MegalosSkylaki]

HMMM...seems like everybodies defending STARBUCKS--or, at least, bug eating.

Guess I'll have to call off the OCCUPY STARBUGS campaign here in New York.

What about the Fleas that are eating me?
Don't I have a say?

DOO0OOG

[no1_vern]

Yes, you have a say, but getting fleas OUT of your fur and INTO food is a big problem.

You deserve better, but I dont have a better solution for you Doog!

[Gomer]

Natural foods are worse. Be sure the rinse the chicken crap off your strawberries. And most of the insects are served right along in your salad. If they are dead, they are very hard to wash off.

Having said that, insect contamination is a normal part of be a human who eats things. Everything eats.

You just see the big ones..

What are unnatural foods?

[Bizkitkid2001]

What are unnatural foods?

According to the UK Food Standards Commitee, Natural foods are foods that are raw, unmixed, unadulterated, and unprocessed.*

So unatural refers to foods that have been cooked, mixed, adulterated, and processed.

However, I think Chuckie is using the term to mean non-organic. A lot of people use the term natural foods as the same meaning as organic foods. If you search for natural foods in Google, Google will search for organic foods.

*From the British Medical Journal 1984 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...00493-0005.pdf


Edit: I meant to say non-organic.

[MegalosSkylaki]

What are WHOLE FOODS and why are they so expensive ?

Would I get sued if I opened up a STARBUGS ?

Are the bugs the most proteinacious part of the foods ? Survival training teaches overcoming food aversions to insects.

I'm not going to say anything, but those who read The JUNGLE know their is something else in adulterated food.

[MegalosSkylaki]

Our frenZ South of the Border apparently are being 'BuggeD another way>>

Live beetle bling is 'all the rage' in Mexico

30 Mar 2012 10:30:00 GMT

The idea of having a bedazzled beetle crawling around on your shirt apparently sounds great to an increasing number of people. Maquech brooches, which consist of live beetles with colorful, sparkly gems glued to their backs, are reportedly "all the rage" in Mexico. The bug baubles, which also include a glued-on gold chain to keep your bling from wandering too far, are supposedly an update on an old Mayan tradition. [Edit]

--from>>>Live beetle bling is 'all the rage' in Mexico - msnNOW

[MegalosSkylaki]

look what I dig up

8 Bugs You Don’t Know You’re Eating | Fitbie

FDA actually has standards for allowable infestation and problem is that it's exceeded.

[no1_vern]

And you don't have to tip them.

I am not bright enough to be able to give tips to my friends. Mostly I listen to what they have to say.

Free food is free food!

Aint that the truth!! Besides, I would rather extra protein in my food(with its extra micro-nutrients) than most of the "sanitized" food they have today.

look what I dig up

8 Bugs You Don't Know You're Eating | Fitbie

FDA actually has standards for allowable infestation and problem is that it's exceeded.

Actually, the problem I see is that so many people are squeamish about eating perfectly good protein.

[tony_j15]

Here's the FDA's Defect Levels Handbook. The section linked deals with "natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans."

TLDR; yes, there will be bugs in food products, but as long as they are below certain levels they don't do harm, so why worry? This again goes back to Americans these days being ignorant of what food is and where it comes from. Anyone who has done gardening will tell you bugs are a part of the process. When I was a kid we used to buy fresh corn from a farmer's market. When we'd bring it home to shuck it, there would inevitably be an ear that had a locust or other bug nesting inside.

[MegalosSkylaki]

It seems to me the worse danger is often the one that we don't se precisely because it is so obvious and "out there" that we don't notice it any more.

Our food has been modified, genetically altered, processed and stripped, irradiated, frozen and unfrozen subject to all kinds of industrial level conditions that one can wonder if it in turn altering our own digestion. One can question if when we alter our environment that our environment in turn can alter us.

A recent Scientific American artical pointed out that we walk around with more cells that are are not part of our bodies than are.

Or see this article>>>

The Neuroscience of the Gut
Strange but true: the brain is shaped by bacteria in the digestive tract


People may advise you to listen to your gut instincts: now research suggests that your gut may have more impact on your thoughts than you ever realized. Scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Genome Institute of Singapore led by Sven Pettersson recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that normal gut flora, the bacteria that inhabit our intestines, have a significant impact on brain development and subsequent adult behavior.

We human beings may think of ourselves as a highly evolved species of conscious individuals, but we are all far less human than most of us appreciate. Scientists have long recognized that the bacterial cells inhabiting our skin and gut outnumber human cells by ten-to-one. Indeed, Princeton University scientist Bonnie Bassler compared the approximately 30,000 human genes found in the average human to the more than 3 million bacterial genes inhabiting us, concluding that we are at most one percent human. We are only beginning to understand the sort of impact our bacterial passengers have on our daily lives.

--from The Neuroscience of the Gut: Scientific American

MegalosSkylaki

[The Birdman 472]

It turns out that the specific beetle is actually a already established source of food coloring. My time volunteering in my county's parks has taught me that the cochneal beetle has already been used for food coloring in Mike n Ike candy up until the 1990s when it was learned that some people were allergic. This colored dye could actually cause allergic reactions in some people.