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SALT LAKE CITY -- What's in a name? Castoreum. Shellac. Carmine. It's in your food, and it's not always sweet.
It may not always be apparent when strange substances are masquerading as something else, but they are present in processed foods such as bread, jelly beans and vanilla ice cream, and they are Food and Drug Administration-approved, at least in certain amounts.
The FDA is responsible for determining the acceptability of food additives -- asking whether "there is a reasonable certainty of no harm" to consumers of the proposed additive. The FDA looks at potential health effects and safety hazards of ingredients, the constitution of ingredients and the amount to be consumed.
Eventually, substances such as castoreum extract make it onto the list of approved substances.
Castoreum extract is often found in vanilla- and raspberry-flavored foods and is usually listed simply as "natural flavoring." It is, indeed, natural: It is derived from a substance found in the castor sacs of beavers.
The extract has historically been used extensively in perfumery, and has been used as a food additive for at least 80 years. It may not sound appealing, but it is certified as Generally Recognized As Safe by the FDA -- a label almost as welcomed in the food industry as "all- natural."
"The GRAS certification means the substance is not even considered an additive," said Devin Koontz, an FDA spokesperson. "There are no quantitative restrictions on its use."
Also GRAS-certified is carmine, a popular colorant made from crushed scale insects. It is often found in red- and pink-toned foods such as yogurt, candy and beverages.
Carmine has been found to provoke allergic reactions in some of those who ingest it, prompting the World Health Organization in 2005 to encourage manufacturers to note the presence of the color in food and beverages. The FDA responded in 2009 by passing a regulation requiring manufacturers to list the ingredient by name on labels. Carmine is listed by the FDA as allowable in food as long as good manufacturing processes are followed
The insect-derived products do not stop at red-colored foods, though. Shiny foods -- particularly candies -- are suspect, as well, thanks to shellac, a substance made from secretions of the female Lac beetle after it consumes tree bark.
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Shellac is commonly seen on nutrition labels as confectioner's glaze, and is most often found in hard candy, chocolate and waxed fresh fruit. It is also used to coat medication and, at a different grade, to varnish wood.
Although it is GRAS-certified, some manufacturers have moved away from using shellac in their food products. Mars, Inc., the maker of M&Ms, uses a mixture of corn syrup and sugar to keep the company's signature candy melting in your mouth, and not in your hands. Others, including Tootsie Roll Industries, continue to use shellac in candies such as Junior Mints and Sugar Babies.
Beetle juice does not take the cake for weird, though, thanks to l-cysteine, an additive commonly found in baked goods. The additive is certified by the FDA as FS -- a substance that is permitted as an optional ingredient. Less than one part l-cysteine is allowed per 100 parts flour per FDA regulation.
A non-essential amino acid, l-cysteine is extracted from human hair and duck feathers. Human hair used to be the place to go for the acid, but in recent years 80 percent of l-cysteine has been obtained from our feathery friends, making it less Heart of Darkness and more DuckTales.
The hair-and-feather by-product is used to enhance the stretchiness of dough. It is a reducing agent, weakening the flour in bread products by breaking its protein network. This is particularly helpful when dough needs to be processed in large quantities by machines into bread, pizza crusts, cookies and the like.
Consumers can avoid unwanted ingredients by sticking to organic foods or foods with fewer ingredients -- the more natural, the better.
Indirectly coming into contact with that dough is animal bone char, which is used in refining most of the sugar sold in the United States to yield the pure-white crystals Americans are so familiar with. Bone char is not actually mixed with sugar, but is used as a filter to capture impurities in processed sugar.
Comfortingly, to prevent the spread of mad-cow disease, the skull and spine of the animal -- commonly a cow, in the U.S. -- are never used. Only the dense ones, such as pelvic bones, are effective.
Bone char is only used to filter cane sugar, though -- beet sugar never comes in contact with the burnt animal parts. A mixture of the two types of sugar, however, will usually result in bone char being used as a refining system.
The ingredients in processed food may be unappetizing, but the FDA says they are safe, at least as far as can be reasonably assumed. The administration sets limits that are well below what has been found to be the actual limit of safe consumption.
The FDA stresses, though, that due to the limits of science, the safe limits can never be 100-percent certain. Consumers can avoid unwanted ingredients by sticking to organic foods or foods with fewer ingredients -- the more natural, the better.
