Super Shocker: What's Really in Our Food

Something totally irked us at Super U this week...watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Correction, watching Jamie Oliver show us what's really in our ice cream sundaes. From duck feathers in cookie dough to beetle secretions in strawberry sauce, Jamie Oliver demonstrated on his Food Revolution show just what the food industry doesn't want you to know. They insert these unthinkable ingredients because they're cheap.

The processed food you eat is not necessarily what you think it is. A long ingredient list with words you can't pronounce should be every indication that what you're eating may be hiding some pretty nasty stuff. The food industry replaces duck feathers and beetle secretions with scientific names that fool YOU, the consumer, into eating these gross products in everyday foods like candy and ice cream.


We did some research and here are some other repulsive ingredients in every day foods:

Yum :)

#1 Hot Dog Casings

What it is: Submucosa

Huh? A layer of the intestine from the intestinal track of farmed animals.

Even grosser...the outer fat and the inner slimy lining are removed so that the casings actually resemble the original intestines!

Don't I look delicious?!

#2 Red Food Coloring

What it is: Carmine

Huh? Crushed scale insects release carminic acid, a red crumbly substance modified with other products to create a brilliant red hued food additive.



Found in...strawberry flavored yogurt, fruit cocktail, strawberry ice cream, frozen popsicles, bottled juices

#3 Chewing Gum Base

What it is: Lanolin


Huh? Yellow waxy substance secreted by the skin glands of wool-bearing animals (mostly domesticated sheep)

So this is where my haircuts go...

#4 Dough Conditioner in Bread

What it is: L-cysteine/cysteine/cystine

Huh? Human hair and/or duck feathers

It's not just bread...most cookie dough in ice cream contains cystine





So the next time you indulge in a factory's concoction remember that Shakespeare had it right...A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. What matters is what something IS, not what it is CALLED.

For more surprising hidden ingredients, click here