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I severely doubt they still grind up insects for this. Likely, they use a microbe that has been modified to produce E120 in huge quantities or otherwise synthes
by zaarn 9y ago
I severely doubt they still grind up insects for this. Likely, they use a microbe that has been modified to produce E120 in huge quantities or otherwise synthesize it. Insects are expensive. A bunch of chemical producing bacteria are easy and cheap.
- unwind 9y agoNo mention of any such more industrialized process on Wikipedia [1], it's bugs all the way. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine
- zaarn 9y agoThat's interesting indeed. I guess that's kinda cool we haven't been able to synthesize this chemical yet for mass production
- mariuolo 9y ago"Producing a kilogram of it requires 80-100'000 insects. Because of its high cost and the risk of allergic reactions, it's often replaced by synthetic dyes like E122, E124 or E132".
- dotancohen 9y agoNote that both E122 and E124 are Azo dyes, which severely impact mental development. Those are two of the six dangerous food colorings that give all food colorings a bad name. In fact, the ground up bugs (E120) are much healthier than the synthetic products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azo_dye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azo_dye
- dsnuh 9y agoHmm would I rather have Carmine or Castoreum today? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoreum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoreum