The Jungle

Greetings and welcome again to the Un-Zone. Many of you will notice that I begin my posts with the same intro, or at least a relatively similar one. I think it is time for me to go and change it. But, then again, it conveys a sense of greeting to this blog. Some might leave after they read this post.

Lately, there have been several stories about strange and disgusting objects found in food. The fingertip found in Wendy's chili. Unidentifiable objects found in icecream, hamburgers, pizza, etc. You can find hundreds if not thousands of stories like this online and in papers. It reminds me of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

How many of you have read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? I'm pretty sure that many of you have read it/ were forced to read it at one point or another in high school. If not, some time in college. If neither of those choices, then you really should. It will have you thank the government for imposing all of the laws it does, at least with respect to food safety. The descriptions of what used to be done to food in The Jungle are stomach-turning. It has been said Teddy Roosevelt, after reading a paragraph in the book, stopped eating breakfast. Interestingly enough, he was eating sausage. Then came the Pure Foods Act of 1906. And food became less disgusting due to these laws.

You may now be thinking, "Food today is pretty safe. It surely doesn't have human parts and other weird things like they did in more unscrupulous times." Well, you would be correct in most instances, but the regulations they have now, well, let's just say the government regulations...well...they could be updated. They haven't been changed since the mid 80's. Robert Choate, who used to be a government nutritional consultant, said that there might be more protein in the INSECTS inside breakfast cereal than in the cereal itself. It's very likely he was exaggerating, but there might be a grain of truth in that statement. Let's just say that what is still going into food is not that appetizing. How do I know? I've seen the FDA technical regulations. You could buy a copy for about $60, but I will give you a few regulations for free.

But first, a few words of warning. The following may make you very sick if you have a weak stomach. It may still make you sick if you have a strong one. Also, you might not want to read this if you have eaten or will be eating. Oh yeah, if you though what are acceptable levels of contamination in food was bad, you should see what goes into things like lunch meat. It's not human parts or rotten flesh or maggots, but it does get bad. Now that you've been properly warned, let's take a look into the government regulations on food contamination.

1. 250 milliliters of orange juice (about a cup, for those not metrically inclined) can contain up to 10 fruit fly eggs, but only two maggots.
2. You like coffee? I know a lot of you do. Ever wonder where it gets that great aroma? It might be from roasted insects. Up to 10% of coffee beans can be infested with or damaged by insects. Like Maxwell House says, "It's good to the last drop."
3. Peanut butter and jelly. Greatest sandwich ever. All the protein in peanut butter may not be from the peanuts alone. And those chunks in chunky peanut butter...some might not be peanuts. It is interesting to note that insects are an excellent source of protein. There can be up to 50 insect fragments per 100 grams. Oh...another thing. Hair is made of keratin, which is a protein. Yup. Your peanut butter can contain 1 rodent hair per 100 grams. The FDA is very picky about what type of rodent hair is in your food. If it is rat hair, then the level of sanitation is not great, but considered normal. Yeah, like I want to eat food that the rats have taken a few bits from... Squirrel hair, however, is never allowed, as it shows extremely poor sanitation standards. As if rat hair wasn't bad enough.
Like apple butter? Some people like it. It must be from all the insects in there. You can have up to 5 insects per 100 grams, which equals to about 25 in a 16 ounce jar. However, little insects like mites and aphids do not count, as all fruit have them. They have to be larger. If that wasn't gross enough, most apple butter is made from the wormy apples. The less-infested apples go to market. At least those apples don't have worms. Aphids, yes. But worms...no.
4. Spices. Now those are rife with insects. Apoparently, it is absolutely normal for spices to contain insects from the moment they are planted up till the time they enter the jar and into your food. You can't do much about this problem, but rest assured that there are no live insects allowed in your spices, just dead ones finely ground up into fragments only identifiable to experts. Though you might find some larger ones in a few bottles.
5. Frozen vegetables. In some cases, up to 200 thrips and aphids can be found in a one-pound package. You probably won't be able to find them, but the experts can.
6. Wheat. Many things contain wheat. Bread, pasta, flour, etc. At this point, where I am going should be getting obvious. Those pesky rodents. A kilogram of wheat (about 2.2 pounds) can average up to 9 milligrams of rodent excreta pellets or pellet fragments. Just so you know. So, if your food tastes like crap, it probably does...well...at least rodent feces.
7. "Foreign Matter." This is the catch-all term for stuff that just couldn't be classified. It's like the term "artificial colors and flavorings" on ingredient lists. Now those things are weird. Did you know that some cheap wines contain eggs, gelatin, preservatives, and isinglass. The last term, isinglass, is a jelly made from fish bladders. All of that is needed to make wine clear and last long. The wine lobby convinced Congress that the things needed to make modern wine palatable and acceptable to the consumer are unappetizing to list on the label. They were right. Drink up!
Anyways, the most common "foreign matter" is metal. All processed food contains metal. Most fragments are unnoticable. These companies buy specially designed metal detectors just for this job. They're set to catch packages that contain too much metal. Have you ever had a raisin that crunched when you bit in it? You thought is was a seed, right? You were probably wrong. It might have been lead shot. Hunters like walking through vineyards.

That's just a small listing of the regulations found in FDA Technical Bulletin No. 1. There are a lot more that I could not list, but this is a good overview of what is allowed in food today.

Anybody hungry? Bon Appetit! That's all for now.

Online Version of The Jungle
http://www.online-literature.com/upton_sinclair/jungle/

FDA Technical Bulletin No. 1
http://www.aoac.org/pubs/pubcat83.htm