FDA to Require Producers to List Bugs on Food and Cosmetic Labels

You may not know it—and there’s no reason you would, unless you’re a chemist—but some of your food and cosmetics include dyes derived from the ground-up bugs. For centuries, Mayans and Aztecs crushed the dried-out bodies of female cochineal insects to produce a red dye used for fabrics, but more recently, the stuff has been used to color candies, yogurts, juices, and ice creams. Consumers, for the most part, have been completely ignorant that they were sucking down bug junk.

But now the Food and Drug Administration is changing that. Earlier this week, the FDA issued a rule requiring manufacturers to list cochineal dye among the ingredients (rather than concealing it as “artificial colors” or “color added”). As this ABC News story reports, the new requirement has nothing to do with alerting consumers to a potential a gross-out factor:

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