I Don’t Wanna Be An Entomophagist:
Candies with Bug Derivatives 🍬🪲

A friend of mine recently asked me if I ate Good n’ Plenty, the pink and white coated licorice candy. I had to tell her no and why and, in doing so, managed to help push her finger down on the “w” key, as in “Ewwww…”, long enough to maybe instill a pink and white boycott.

Good n’ plenty, like many popular candies, contain an ingredient called Carmine. It’s listed as a coloring and that is accurate. However, it is more accurate to say that Carmine is a “natural” coloring that is derived from boiling cochineal beetles. Yes, the resulting resinous glaze gives a deep color and lustre few consumers can pass up! Here is a bit more on the harvesting process (source):

“The insects are carefully brushed from the cacti… and placed into bags. The bags are taken to the production plant and there, the insects are then killed by immersion in hot water or by exposure to sunlight, steam or the heat of an oven. It is to be noted that the variance in appearance of commercial cochineal is caused by the different methods used during this process. It takes about 70,000 insects to make one pound (454 gm) of cochineal. The body of one coccineal is said to contain between 18-20% of carminic acid.

The part of the insect that contains the most carmine is the abdomen that houses the fertilized eggs of the coccineal. Once dried, a process begins whereby the abdomens and fertilized eggs are separated from the rest of the anatomical parts. These are then ground into a powder and cooked at temperatures in excess of 212 F to extract the maximum amount of color. This cooked solution is filtered and through special processes that cause all carmine particles to precipitate to the bottom of the cooking container. The liquid is removed and the bottom of the container is left with pure carmine.”

So much to my friend’s surprise she had been scarfing down insect by-products! Ew indeed. And even grosser, bugs are in many candy products. Ingredients lists that say “natural color“, “added color“, “artificial color” may very well include boiled bug by-products. Additionally, “confectioner’s glaze“, “food glaze“, “resinous glaze” and “pharmaceutical glaze” are all bug-acquired coatings and, therefore, not vegan.

Below is a running list of products with buggy by-products/non-vegan candies that I’ll update when necessary. Please comment if you know of any others!

• Atomic Fireball
• Hershey’s Good n’ Plenty
• Hershey’s Good n’ Fruity
• Hot Tamales
• Jelly Belly jellybeans
• Lemonheads
• Maraschino cherries
• Mike & Ike
• Non-pareils and sprinkles
• Red Hots
• Sugar Babies
• Tropicana grapefruit juice
• Willy Wonka Gobstoppers
• Willy Wonka Runts
• Willy Wonka Nerds
• Yoplait strawberry yogurt