Bugs in Our Daily Life
By Leslie Montanez
Everyone you know eats bugs, even you.
Carmine is a natural dye made by crushing up these small parasites called cochineals used to produce that bright and attractive red color that goes into our food, drinks, and even makeup! Just like us, cochineals are all different, because of this, the people that are hired to look for these little critters usually go after the female cochineals since they produce the highest concentrations of carminic acid–the chemical that produces their red coloring.
When I say “everyone” eats bugs, it's because of the long, almost unavoidable, list of brands that use it, such as, “Betty Crocker, Blue Bunny, Dippin’ Dots, Dole, Dubble Bubble, Hostess, Peeps, Pop Tarts, Trolli, Yoo-hoo”(EWG) as well as thousands of others. If you were to look into the ingredients label, there’s a chance that you wouldn’t see “carmine” but rather, Red no. 4, cochineal extract, E120, crimson lake, or carminic acid, just to name a few. According to the International Association of Color Manufacturers, these brands are legally able to put Carmine into the following: “meat products, seafood, alcoholic beverages and soft drinks, cider, vinegar, yogurt, baked goods, jams, jellies, dairy products, snack foods, convenient foods, fruit preparations, and seasonings”.
That’s not all though, we also smear cochineal guts all over our face! Carmine’s other specialty is makeup which ranges anywhere from drugstore brands to the high-end ones we can find at Sephora or MAC. It’s found in everything, even the items we’d least expect! Bronzer, highlighter, mascara, you name it! It’s a carmine epidemic. Regardless, the brands that use it consist of ones like “Burt’s Bees, Clinique, Colourpop, Covergirl, L’Oreal/L’Oreal Paris, L.A. Colors, MAC, Maybelline, Neutrogena, Revlon, Sephora, Ulta/Ulta Beauty, and Wet N Wild”(EWG). Although carmine is the most expensive dye out there, these companies buy it for the simple sake of claiming to use “all natural ingredients” and because of course it is “The Royal Red of Natural Dyes”, after all, nothing beats carmine's intense vibrancy.
Now who’s idea was it to use parasite guts to produce dye? How did we end up here? Well, the original creators were the Aztecs who used the cochineal extract–something that naturally grew on the nopal(cactus), to dye textiles. The usage of carmine as a dye dates back to 700 BC, however, the Spanish didn’t discover it until the fifteenth century, eventually leading to its popularity in Europe. The Spanish had been so reserved about carmine’s origins that its value eventually reached the equivalent of gold! And by the 16th century, carmine was a symbol of royalty, making it popular for dyeing crowns, capes, furniture, and other clothing items. Dethroning purple in the royal court.
“If carmine is a natural dye, then what’s the harm?” you may be asking. But, the opposite is quite true. Carmine has some of the biggest opposing groups; vegans, germaphobes, as well as those allergic to it. The first attempt to ban this ingredient was a failed petition back in August 24, of 1998(CSPI) and was centered around allergies. Since then, additional health concerns have created a growing opposition and an increased focus on health risks. On October 7, 2023, one of these petitions was signed by California Governor, Gavin Newson, who plans on completely eradicating the use of carmine in food and drink products by 2027. He stated that his reasons for signing the petition were because of, "...scientific studies that have demonstrated significant public health harms, including increased risk of cancer, behavioral issues in children, harm to the reproductive system, and damage to the immune system."(FDA)
However, it seems like a risk worth taking when considering synthetic alternatives which are cheaper like Red 40 which is the most common choice and has a stronger correlation to cancer due to a carcinogenic (cancer-causing) ingredient named benzine. Additionally, the tie that the petition had to cancer was the correlation of cancer in rats but that was “not relevant to human cancer” (New York Times). In short, Red 40 is a synthetic cancer-causing dye while carmine is a natural dye with no direct correlation to human cancer.
In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any potential for cancer in any of our ingredients for dye. Unfortunately, for us, we live in a dystopian society where each of the 9 dyes that the FDA deems edible, Blue No. 1, Blue No.2, Green No. 3, Orange B, Red No. 2, Red No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, and Yellow No. 6, 3 of which being carcinogenic and all 9 of them containing their own set of health risks.
We just pick our poison, bugs or cancer.