Don’t you just love dessert? From cookies and cakes to ice cream and candy, dessert is one of the few things everyone agrees about. There’s a reason why we celebrate birthdays with cake and welcome new neighbors with pie! In fact, dessert makes the world go round, and it’s all thanks to basic ingredients like flour, sugar, eggs, and cocoa.
Or… sort of. Some weird ingredients make their way into a few sweet treats.
Actually, there are a lot of weird ingredients lurking in common desserts.
Some ingredients are downright gross, while others are simply unexpected. Interestingly, though, food manufacturers don’t always hide these ingredients; it’s not uncommon to find them listed on food labels. The catch is, the weird ingredients typically have names the average consumer can’t recognize.
For example, do you know what carmine is? What about carrageenan?
You might not imagine that carmine and carrageenan are in ordinary dessert recipes. Yet, both ingredients can be found in store-bought treats like strawberry ice cream! But if you’re like us and love learning weird facts about food, you’re in luck.
The following list features all of the strangest ingredients in desserts.
And, well, let’s just say that you might look at your fave treats in a whole new light.
1. Beetle Poop
Have you ever wondered how hard candies like jelly beans get their shiny, glossy appearance? Have you even noticed it? It’s quite possible you never actually thought about the outside coating. Why would you when eating candy is the most interesting thing about candy? That yummy-looking coating isn’t natural, though.
In fact, many hard candies are shiny because of shellac, a sticky resin that’s made from the excretions of female Kerria lacca beetles.
You can find the bug in the forests of Thailand and India, and the females secrete the sticky substance on trees. Humans mix the residue with alcohol to make liquid shellac and then apply it to hard candies like Jolly Ranchers and candy corn. It’s also used on sprinkles, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
2. Beaver Secretions
Uh, yeah. You read that right. North American and European beavers release a substance called castoreum. It comes from two castor sacs that are located near the animal’s anal glands. Though the substance resembles brown slime it apparently smells great. In fact, wildlife researcher, Joanne Crawford, loves to sniff beavers’ posterior areas. She notes:
People think I’m nuts [for enjoying an occasional whif]. I tell them, “Oh, but it’s beavers; it smells really good.”
Beavers use castoreum to mark their territories; humans use it in vanilla flavoring substitutes.
It’s sometimes used in strawberry or raspberry flavors, too. And while the FDA considers castoreum to be “generally recognized as safe,” you won’t find it mentioned on the packaging of your favorite treats. It’s usually labeled as a natural flavor.
3. Pigskin
In case you didn’t know, pigs provide more than just bacon. Actually, ground particles of pigs’ bones, skin, and tissues can be found in many common food items. Some products might not even include the meaty addition on ingredient lists. So vegetarians beware; you wouldn’t want to eat pigskin unknowingly.
Specifically, the pigskin is rich in collagen.
And collagen makes gelatin. Does this sound familiar now? Gelatin is a key ingredient in many popular desserts. Jell-O, especially, needs gelatin to retain its semi-firm jelly state. Without gelatin, Jell-O would never solidify properly, and you would never get to eat that classic summer treat. But even if you do eat meat, it’s still weird to think about mixing pork products with your desserts.
4. Carrageenan
When you think of seaweed, what comes to mind? If you are like most folks, you probably think of savory foods like sushi and bowls of noodles. And, indeed, seaweed tastes great wrapped around bite-sized portions of rice and fish. Seafood does way more than just enhance yummy rice dishes, though.
You might be surprised to learn that carrageenan — a gel derived from seaweed — is hiding in your desserts.
Used as a thickener and an emulsifier, carrageenan makes ingredients stick together. You can find carrageenan in treats like ice cream, whipped cream, and non-dairy pudding. (To check out a complete list of foods that use carrageenan, check out this USDA report.)
5. Rodent Hairs
Yes, you read that right. Not only do you have to worry about finding human hair in your food, you have to be on the lookout for hair from mice and rats. To make matters worse, the hairs could be riddled with germs. While no true desserts literally add rodent hairs to the ingredient list as a necessary item, the FDA allows a certain amount of the animal strands in various foods.
For example, in every 100 grams of peanut butter, the Food and Drug Association allows one or more rodent hairs.
We don’t know about you, but we’re completely ready to swear off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches forever. Moreover, the Food and Drug Association allows rodent hair in other common dessert ingredients. If you don’t want to cough up mouse hairs after enjoying your next sweet concoction, stay away from wheat flour, ground cinnamon, and apple butter. They all might have hair. And it’s legal.
6. Beef Fat
If you’re having a nice beef stew or a little beef wellington, we’re sure you won’t mind a little excess beef fat. Sometimes, the fatty byproduct can even add a little extra flavor. If you’re not eating actual beef, however, you probably don’t expect to consume beef fat during a meal.
Beef fat, however, is a major ingredient in certain packaged desserts like Twinkies.
8. Cochineal Bugs
Food coloring, understandably, causes a lot of controversies. In fact, some people who prefer natural foods with minimal additives think most food coloring is completely unnecessary. They’d rather eat their food with as few chemicals as possible. Other natural food advocates actually think food coloring can be dangerous.
And actually, some red foods are dyed with carmine, a colorant made of boiled cochineal bugs.
Now, these bugs are not technically dangerous, but who wants to eat food that’s been artificially colored by bug juice? The red-dye-producing bugs live on cacti and are typically found in South America, Mexico, and some southern parts of the United States. They also release carminic acid, a substance that wards off predators.
Manufacturers process cochineal bugs to make carmine, and the substance adds color to sweets like red Skittles or red velvet cake.
It’s used in red lipstick, too.
9. Petroleum Compound
Tartrazine is a yellow dye that’s used to color candy and food. It can be mixed with blue dye to make different shades of green.
Interestingly, though, the dye is derived from benzene, a component of petroleum.
Tartrazine, which is usually listed as FD&C yellow #5, is often found in lemon fillings and flavorings. Dessert biscuits, cake mix, pastries, and hard candy might also contain tartrazine.
10. Titanium Dioxide
While titanium dioxide sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, it’s actually a mineral that’s found in a ton of baked goods.
Titanium dioxide is used to whiten and brighten powdered sugar.
Consequently, you can find the compound in cake frosting and powdered doughnuts. If dessert manufactures didn’t use this dioxide mineral, many desserts would look quite dull.
11. Silicon Dioxide
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is a compound that naturally occurs in sandstone, quartz, and other natural materials. It actually fills those little packets that come in new products like purses and shoes.
The same compound is also used in powdered products like cake mixes and flour.
In food, silicon dioxide prevents clumping. Don’t worry, though — the silica that’s used as a food additive is safe, according to Healthline.
12. Wood Pulp Fiber
If you didn’t think tree bark had a place in the kitchen, you’re quite wrong. In fact, a malleable type of fiber, cellulose, can be extracted from any plant, even ordinary grass and corn. Manufacturers commonly extract the fiber from wood pulp.
A natural thickening agent, cellulose improves the consistency of foods like ice cream, whipped cream, and frozen yogurt.
13. Insect Heads
Whether you’re making homemade fig bars or garnishing a batch of roasted peaches, fig paste is one of those hard-to-resist sweet treats. Dessert chefs use it more often than one might think. And while the paste is sticky, it’s natural sweetness can be incredibly appealing.
You might not find fig paste all that appealing after learning what goes into it, though.
The Food and Drug Association actually allows “13 or more insect heads per 100 grams of fig paste in each of 2 or more subsamples.” Consequently, every time you bite into a Fig Newton, you may very well be chewing a mouthful of bug heads. Yikes! Needless to say, this is a solid reason to learn to make fig paste from scratch.
