Posted on 09/16/2019 2:49:02 PM PDT by Red Badger
Most people enjoy a scoop of delicious ice cream. But did you know that the popular dessert used to contain anal secretions from beavers? If you think that’s stomach-turning, check out these other weird or even deadly ingredients found in common food products. Baguettes with a side of opium
Just last March, shoppers in France were warned against purchasing bread that contained a dose of opium. Health officials were puzzled about the unexplained presence of the drugs in poppy seed baguettes and ready-made sandwiches made from poppy seed bread.
Poppy seeds don’t usually contain opiates and government investigators posit that a batch of seeds delivered to bakeries may have been contaminated from the latex sap of the plant that has alkaloids.
The investigators have yet to determine exactly how much of the popular sandwich bread was contaminated. One sandwich made from poppy seed bread could contain at least four milligrams (mg) of morphine, a dose equal to almost half a tablet of morphine sulfate that’s administered to individuals diagnosed with cancer.
Experts warn that the contaminated poppy seed bread is unsafe to eat and may even cause addiction. Investigators are still working on identifying the source of the contamination, along with the companies supplied with the tainted batch of seeds. “Allowable food defects”
Common foods aren’t always prepared in sterile conditions. It’s not uncommon for people to accidentally consume food with contaminants like feces, insects, mold, parasites, rodent hairs, and soil.
According to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Defect Levels Handbook, some items have acceptable or non-hazardous levels of these undisclosed ingredients. To illustrate, two cups of cornmeal may contain at least five insects, 10 insect fragments, 10 rodent hairs, and five fragments of rodent feces. Ice cream with a splash of beaver secretion
Castoreum, a natural flavoring, is a thick and aromatic secretion that comes from the anal glands of beavers. This ingredient gives a vanilla flavor to certain dairy products and desserts.
Near the end of the 19th century, beavers were hunted almost to extinction due to the high demand for castoreum, which was used as a food additive and fragrance. German chemists came to the beavers’ rescue when they discovered that vanillin, one of the chemicals responsible for the taste of vanilla, can be obtained from coniferin in pine bark.
Synthetic vanillin makes up at least 94 percent of all vanilla flavoring used by the food industry, with natural vanilla extract accounting for most of the remaining six percent. However, castoreum is still used in limited quantities to flavor luxury foods and beverages. Cheese with stomach enzymes
Traditional rennet, another “natural” ingredient, is used to make cheese. It is derived from the mucous membrane of the fourth stomach (abomasum) of young ruminants like calves and lambs. (Related: “Natural flavors” are anything but.)
Cheesemakers use rennet to separate milk into curds and whey for a crucial stage in the manufacturing process. While some cheesemakers still use traditional rennet, others use alternatives made from bacterial fermentation, mold, and plants (e.g., ivy and nettles). Mad honey disease
Several members of the rhododendron genus of flowering plants produce grayanotoxins in their nectar.
These neurotoxic substances are collected by bees to make honey. Consuming this honey causes “mad honey disease” in humans. This contamination may result in negative side effects like hallucinations, nausea, and vomiting. Lethal pickles
Food preservation methods such as pickling are used to extend the shelf life of food. But did you know that improperly preserved food can promote the growth of Clostridium botulinum?
C. botulinum produces the world’s most toxic substances, collectively called botulinum toxin. The toxin is so fatal that a dose of two thousand millionths of a gram (2ng) is considered deadly. In comparison, the average lethal dose of potassium cyanide is at least a tenth of a gram.
Eating contaminated food causes botulism, a condition that stops your nervous system from functioning properly. This illness results in general muscle weakness, paralysis, or death.
Honey may contain C. botulinum spores and while they are rather harmless for most individuals, the immune system of young infants is almost ineffective against these bacteria. The spores can cause a related condition called infant botulism, which is one reason why many government agencies warn against giving honey to children younger than one year old.
Before you eat something, think about where your food came from. Check food packaging carefully to determine that you’re buying products made with natural ingredients that are safe to eat.
Sources include:
TheConversation.com
Telegraph.co.uk
FDA.gov
Beaver ass cream is the best kind
Well I am glad to know they are boneless. And inverted. Can’t imagine a pork rectum with the bone in it right side up.
The 32nd flavor
“Bourbon is still wholesome, right? It’s not made from a weasel dingus or anything, is it?”
A possum might get into the mash and drown now and then, but the alcohol kills most of the germs, so, no worries!
My favorite is the red dye in Red Velvet Cake is squashed up bug guts.
Must’ve been a slow day for you
inquiring minds want to know! LOL
YUM...
I happen to like eating .... ice cream ... fooled ya
Is Beaver Butt Really Used To Flavor Your Dessert? Here’s What You Should Know.
A beaver’s posterior, believe it or not, smells good. Like, really good, according to Joanne Crawford, a wildlife ecologist who told National Geographic that she loves putting her nose down there and breathing it all in. “People think I’m nuts,” she said. “I tell them, ‘Oh, but it’s beavers; it smells really good.’”
The ancient equivalent of scientists experimented with any and all natural substances, looking for uses. Gum was made from tree resins, et cetera.
With limited resources, and nothing synthetic, they were accustomed to testing all aspects of a plant or animal for use.
Ammbergris, from Sperm Whales, used in expensive perfumes, nearly made them extinct from wholesale whaling. Although cosmetics was certainly a use, many famously valuable substances had other, more important uses.
The Bible speaks of Myrhh, Frankincense, and other spices, because they were used like money; that use arose from their having tangible, medicinal uses. (Boswellia, used for inflammation, is Frankincense.) It was not just because they smell nice.
Gold, silver, and copper are precious/semi-precious because they have exceptional properties of conductivity and ductility. It was not just because they are pretty.
Generic, symbolic money has removed us from the immediacy of nature.
The point is: Someone long ago tested these things, to find out their properties and uses.
Aroma is in the nose of the beholder
Beaver secretions are definitely natural and organic.
Cochineal beetles used to make red food coloring are natural as well.
Totally fascinating how these bizarre things come about. I believe beaver anal glands are/were used in perfume too.
They shouldn’t have put the anal glands so close to the beaver.
Beaver weren’t just hunted for castoreum but for their pelts, which were used to make felt for then-fashionable top hats. It wasn’t until silk top hats started being more fashionable that the trapping pressure for pelts was lifted.
Problem was, when there’s no demand for beaver pelts or excretions then the beaver become ‘pests’ of no economic value that eat valuable trees, increasing global warming by releasing carbon in the form of vanilla scented beaver farts. Maybe it isn’t SUVs’ or cows’ fault at all but the proliferation of beaver. ;-)
Maybe they used to use cow stomach to store milk or yogurt and accidentally made cheese...
Ha!
I thought that was an SNL skit from back when SNL was good!
But you’re right, it was Rush.
Some Indian or French fur trapper may have discovered the beaver’s secret when starving one winter made him desperate enough to eat from his gutpile. The meat from the animal is very good, like beef. Maybe a trapper found out while trying to get a piece of tail.
I know muskrat oil smells like orangepeel but have never been desperate enough to do anything with the glands.
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