Marketing and all things related

Marketing Blurb likes to believe we are a careful shopper. We read product labels always conscious of what our wife or girlfriend deems as “banned substances.” We never eat those ingredients--which is why we are still so young and vibrant (and perpetually hungry.) But what we don’t know about food labels is even worse. We just learned from Business Week, that a common ingredient called carmine, or cochineal extract is used to create pink and red colors in Yoplait yogurt, Hershey Good & Plenty candy, and Tropicana grapefruit juice. As it turns out, the color results from crushed female cochineal beetles and their eggs. Bugs are a common food ingredient in much of the world, but not in the US, where these food companies choose to be vague regarding certain ingredients. Food activities want to force new label disclosure legislation. Marketing Blurb will not comment other to say that we only drink grapefruit juice from a grapefruit we can personally squeeze.