Linda Coburn
A sample of the new “Fiber One Chewy Bar” was included with my newspaper on Sunday, compliments of General Mills. Free food…Yay!
It sounds healthy and we can all use an extra shot of fiber after a week of fast-food, right?
But having gotten rather suspicious about these supposedly healthy bars, I decided to peruse the nutritional information.A scan of the ingredients list revealed something startling. The third ingredient: Confectioners shellac.
Hold on! I could swear that shellac is a type of varnish used to seal wood and make it shiny. Yuck! Maybe I’m remembering wrong? Let’s check my American Heritage dictionary.shel∑lac (sh?-l?k’) n. A purified lac…widely used in varnishes, paints, inks, sealants, and formerly in phonograph records.
Okay, but what’s this “lac” that’s being purified?lac (l?k): n. A resinous secretion of the lac insect deposited on trees and used in making shellac.Bug secretions? That doesn’t sound right. But this is “confectioners shellac.” Maybe it’s different when it’s a food product? Wrong! Here’s a definition for confectioners shellac at the Food Product Design Web site: “Food-grade shellac comes from a resinous secretion of the female beetle Lassifer lacca.”Beetle juice? Gross!It turns out that this bug secretion is used to make all kinds of ingestible products shiny, especially candies. It is also the ingredient that makes “timed-release” vitamins and medicines work. Since it takes about 30 minutes for your stomach acid to break down the shellac, they coat the medicine with it, then add another layer of medicine, another layer of shellac, and there you have it, timed-release pills.If you’re a vegan or keep kosher, products made with shellac are verboten. As for me, I think I’ll just stick with matte finish foods for now.
Photo Illustration Credit: Gil Riego
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