“You don’t want to know how the sausage is made.” The old adage is true. Trust us. Some facts about food are best left moldering in the dark, humid corner behind your kitchen cabinet. So don’t read on, dear Pandas. Don’t-- oh well. It looks like we’re not going to be able to stop you curious Pandas from checking out the true-but-disgusting food facts that the Bored Panda team has collected. They’re perfect for the spookfest that is October, just not great for your stomach.
Go on, then, scroll on down. Just remember to upvote your fave yucky and icky facts and share any other ones that you know in the comment section below. But please, promise us one thing—make sure you’re not snacking on anything as you’re reading this post!
How many bugs can legally be in your food? What’s the name of the cheese that you should steer clear of if you’re not a fan of chomping on live insects? Why is my appetite suddenly gone? The answers to these and other questions are below.
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Worked at Subway 2010-12. Only thing I have to say is that tuna and seafood packaged used to have a label on it that said that it didn't contain dolphin or turtles in the meat, then that label suddenly disappeared in 2012.
I used to work in a baseball park concession stand. The short answer is not to order anything, but if you absolutely have to buy something, don't buy the hotdogs.
Do not. Buy. The hot dogs.
They made it out of the package okay, and might even have been edible after we finished grilling them - and then they went into the water. We kept three pans of water at the back of the grill, that held the hot dogs. Any hot dogs left at the end of the day went back into the fridge, and came out again the next day. Me and the other cook put our feet down on throwing out the water and old hot dogs after two full days, but the management didn't want to let us.
Oh, and our freezer broke so all the meat got stored in the ice bin. And our management always told us when the surprise health inspections were gonna show up, usually a week or so in advance.
Salami isnt cooked. It is technically a raw product. In its production good bacteria is added that decreased* the ph to a point that harmful bacteria such as e. coli and listeria can't survive, which then make it safe to eat. Not to mention the cool fungus that grows on the casing to protect it from dying out too much. Very neat. (Meat Science major, we make Salami and other meat products on campus in a dinky meat lab)
"It is economically impractical to grow, harvest, or process raw products that are totally free of non-hazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects," explains the United States Food and Drug Administration (aka the FDA).
Translated from corporate-speak, this means that it’s not possible for food products to be completely free from bits of bugs, mold, animal hair, and other parts of the Great Outdoors. Sure, it might sound yucky, but we don’t even notice these ‘food defects’ the vast majority of the time and we’ve been swallowing them our entire lives.
However, nobody wants to be chomping down on chocolate bars that are entirely made up of insects. So the FDA has guidelines to keep icky bits of Mother Nature out of your snacks. For instance, CNN reports that the FDA allows an average of 10 milligrams of animal poop per pound of coffee. What’s more, 4 to 6% of the coffee beans are allowed to be moldy or infested by insects.
There is always cow feces in all milk. Cows' assholes are right above the udder. Udders are cleaned before attaching the milking machines, but sh** happens all day long while cows are getting milked. Once you see a milking operation, you'll be REALLY glad to know that they literally pasteurize the shit out of that milk.
This depends on the farm/farmer. QWe were small and ethical, we washed up good, and *never* did a cow pee/poo into the milking machine. It's immpossible. Wash the udder, attach the mlker, and any feces/urine just hit the outside of hte machine. Its' why we hosed off the machine before removal from the udder, too. Then rubbed on udder balm, and the cows went out to graze till evening milking. I can't speak to BIG operations, but we were very focused on cleanliness.
Milk still isn't good for you - it has everything a calf needs to grow into a cow/bull - not for a human being. Humans are the only species that weans infants from mother's breast milk and onto breast milk from another species.
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Um...no, no they don't. Te udders are thoroughly cleaned before attachment of the milking machine, which is sealed. There is absolutely no way that faeces can get in, and if some did then it would write off the entire batch. People really need to be properly taught about farming because the sheer amount of bull about it online is astounding.
Like thinking that cows produce breast milk for their calves - but we get told it's good for humans - how much growth hormine is in it compared to human breast milk?
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It does not happen for cow's milk. But there is a possibility for sheep's milk. And sheep milk is expensive and hard to find.
Spent a lot of time on dairy farms as a kid. This was never a problem.
I've seen cows getting milked by hand and by machine and I have milked cows myself, I've been drinking fresh milk and used fresh cream and had no problem with that and still wouldn't have. We actually have a very high standard in Sweden in animal well fair and let our cows pasture and only treat them with antibiotics if needed.
it also contains pus. A lot of pus. The constant infection due to the prolonged milking process is kept at bay with antibiotics but it cannot prevent the formation of pus, that is expelled with the milk. The pasteurization process makes it harmless but not less gross.
I used to squirt it straight from the cow's teat into my mouth, in my young wild days :)
Good thing I'm lactose intolerant. :) (I drink almond milk or lactaid)
There is also blood and pus in milk form animals and it's removed. In the US the FDA allows 750 million pus cells in every litre of milk (4cups)
It is nearly impossible to eat something without some kind of feces on or in it. Hell, we usually got pletny of koli bacteria on our own hands. I am more grossed out by the fact that milk contains pus because so many cow's udders are infected.
dont forget that farming standards in the U.S are very different to the E.U for many reasons. If Americans knew more about there food they would be an outcry.
There is usually pus in there too as cows often havee infected udders - there is an allowance for pus cells in the UK that comes to about 1 million pus cells per teaspoon - most countries have a limit on the amount allowed - except Australia.
Milk gets filtered during processing especially when it goes through the homogenizer to break up the cream.
That's complete and utter nonsense. Raw milk is in no way healthier. The only things it contains more than pasteurized milk are germs. You can't get "used" to listeria. That "cow dirt" helps to prevent allergies is true, but the way to benefit from that is to live near pastures or take regular walks around them. Raw milk is nothing but a health hazard, especially for children.
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One of the most expensive forms of coffee is Kopi Luwak which is coffee beans that have been eaten by a Asian Palm Civet and pooped out and can run up to $700 a kilo.
I know this from the movie "The Bucket List", starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman
You should not feed honey to children under one years old because it contains spores of a bacterium that will produce the possibly deadliest poison known to mankind
Botulism. It's called botulism. So don't give your young children honey. Also - no alcohol.
Meanwhile, peanut butter and jelly sandwich lovers should look away from this paragraph. FDA standards permit an average of one or more rodent hairs and around 30 insect fragments for every 100 grams of peanut butter. Jelly and jam aren’t controlled, unfortunately. So something like apple butter can contain an average of 4+ rodent hairs for every 100 grams and around 5 whole insects. That’s in addition to the aphids and mites.
Finally, let’s ruin raisins for you, dear Readers. Do you know those iconic kid-sized boxes? They’ve got around 4 fruit fly eggs and a whole insect in each box. We hope that we haven’t ruined your appetite forever, dear Pandas!
Casu marzu. There exists a cheese that contains live maggot larvae on purpose.
I always wonder what goes through peoples minds before they eat something like this. Do they just think, ooh I wonder if maggot cheese tastes good, or I wonder if I can make coffee from an animals excrements etc.
The roe and milt of certain fish is a common delicacy across the world, including sturgeon roe, otherwise known as caviar.
While roe is widely known to be fish eggs, it's not so well known that milt is fish sperm.
Grocery stores will sometimes mix in food colouring in with near expiration date meat to make it look fresh
Usually because no restaurant ever has cleaned out the ice machine. It also depends on what they use to scoop the ice out of the machines. If you got people with dirty hands with a scoop scooping out ice you can imagine all the nasty particles that rub off on the ice etc. Do that 4-5 times a day and you see the potential for nasty to accumulate.
They use shellac to make some different foods and candies more shiny. Shellac is an excretion from the lac beetle.
Canned pineapple can pack in up to 20% moldy fruit.
Still, it's more sustainable to buy pineappe canned than whole fruits. If you chop the top of a pineapple off and put it on the ground, it will grow again. That takes much less fertilizer and water than growing it from seeds. That's what is done if the fruit goes directly to canning.
In the United States companies can legally sell curry powder that contains less than 100 insect fragments per 25 grams
Hops with less than 2500 aphids per 10 grams and coffee as long as less than 10% of beans are moldy.
Even with modern technology, all defects in goods cannot be eliminated. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration has set allowable defect or "tolerance levels."
Shrimps diet consists mainly of poop. If you've ever eaten shrimp, you've eaten poop from potentially thousands of different animals including humans.
We eat poop all the bloody time without knowing, whether it is from fruits, veg, peanut butter etc. You cannot escape it, so you just have to get used to the idea.
Every time you eat fresh produce, you're taking the risk that no one who touched it also didn't poop in their hands. So, wash everything and enjoy your salad.
Prepackaged salads are an excellent source of bacteria. The salad gets washed once, then is sold to you.
The contents in a jar of peanut butter contains on average 2 bugs.
FDA regulations state that ten insects and 35 fruit fly eggs per 8 oz. of raisins is OK. It doesn't stop at raisins, though.
Long live European regulations that makes this nonsense impossible.
Lemons have the highest fecal content of any food found in most restaurant kitchens.
Frozen broccoli must have an average of no more than 60 aphids or thrips or mites per 100 grams.
Argh for Pete’s sake! Bugs are a good source of protein anyway.
This is the most disgusting defect in the FDA approved list! Yes, 1 kilogram of wheat may contain upto 9 rodent poop pellets. Even your favourite popcorn may contain upto 4 pellets of rodent poop. The presence of a small amount of mammalian excreta is considered to be safe for consumption.
chocolate bars have an average of 8 insect legs in it.
And they use these legs to escape. I know for sure because all my chocolate bars always magically disappear.
Oregano can legally contain up to 1,250 insect fragments per 10 grams.
And what is the size of those insect fragments? If you're going to microscopic level, every single piece of food is contaminated in one way or another.
Tomato paste is considered bad only if more than 45 percent contains mold.
I am sorry but if it contains just one tid bit of mould, it is going in the bin.
As much as five percent of your maraschino cherries can legally contain maggots.
Figs have dead wasps inside them.
Never encountered a wasp in any fig I have ever eaten.
Berries can harbor up to 4 larvae per 100 grams.
Cinnamon can carry up to 1 milligram of animal excrement per pound.
Up to 10 percent of canned asparagus can harbor asparagus beetles or egg sacs.
I've been psyching myself up over eating bugs one day (most likely cricket flour). I tell myself things like shrimp and crab are seabugs, and they are pretty good.
Same...I was hoping for some surprisingly gross stuff not "OMG insect parts!".
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Eating small amounts of contamination in our food is good for our immune system, it makes us stronger. You just can't, like, eat completely moldy ananas, that doesn't make you any good. You never pluck an apple or peach straight from a tree and eat it without washing? I can't remember how many times I have eaten any kinds of fruit in the woods or in the garden. With livestock it's slightly different, there are higher risks but too much worry only makes you paranoid.
Exactly that. If you grow food in your garden, it will have a ton of natural contamination, much more than store-bought food is allowed to have. You'll have dirt and beetles in your salad all the time if you don't take care.
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This got to one of the dumbest lists I have seen in a long time, most items are just wrong, or whatever amount is so small that it does not matter....
This felt like it was only about how much poop is allowed (not guaranteed) in your food. Good annoying after the first 5 talking about it.
Eh extra protein you know. As long as there isn’t like a 3 inch cockroach or an entire dog turd who cares...
Also, back in the olden days(I forgot when) a guy got a job at a meat factory and wrote a book about his experiences. Apparently, careless workers can get parts of their body chopped off and blended in with the meat, and mice run around it the tube that they use to make sausages, so you could potentially be eating human and mouse poop. This is why I don't eat hot dogs.
This is why you eat kosher food. They have strict rules about eating insects insect, and the food is generally much cleaner
Yummy! What doesn´t kill you, makes you stronger... Ignorance is bliss I guess...
So... There's a lot of bugs in food. Shocker. This was so stupid, my brain hurts.
Some things like the hot dogs and the ice machine, yeah, you should take care to avoid because those are some real health concerns or just plain nasty. The rest though? Even if all of it were true then the only way to avoid it would be to mever eat anything. Ever. Except the maggot cheese and literal poop coffee. That's just disgusting.
Well, I used to eat play-doh when I was a kid, so I think I’ll survive a few bugs and some poop.
Isn't play-doh just starch putty with a ton of salt and food colouring? That's why it can grow mold.
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It was all about insects and poop. I liked it, but I was expecting a bit more out of it.
When tomatoes travel on conveyor belts to make Tomatoe Sauce/Ketchup, the ones that fall off are shoveled up off the floor and thrown back in...was told that as a kid by a friend that worked for Rosella. Still do not care, have dropped plenty of tomatoes on the floor in my lifetime, did three yesterday alone.
These mentioned the highest allowable levels. Most marketed foods in the U.S.will be of a higher quality.
We need to eat something anyway... for peets sake :) everything is organic... we are organic at the end...
The only surprise here is the bug and poop content that American authorities allow in food.
Ummm... you do realize that most of these foods can be considered vegetarian, right?
Load More Replies... Same...I was hoping for some surprisingly gross stuff not "OMG insect parts!".
Load More Replies... Eating small amounts of contamination in our food is good for our immune system, it makes us stronger. You just can't, like, eat completely moldy ananas, that doesn't make you any good. You never pluck an apple or peach straight from a tree and eat it without washing? I can't remember how many times I have eaten any kinds of fruit in the woods or in the garden. With livestock it's slightly different, there are higher risks but too much worry only makes you paranoid.
Exactly that. If you grow food in your garden, it will have a ton of natural contamination, much more than store-bought food is allowed to have. You'll have dirt and beetles in your salad all the time if you don't take care.
Load More Replies... This got to one of the dumbest lists I have seen in a long time, most items are just wrong, or whatever amount is so small that it does not matter....
This felt like it was only about how much poop is allowed (not guaranteed) in your food. Good annoying after the first 5 talking about it.
Eh extra protein you know. As long as there isn’t like a 3 inch cockroach or an entire dog turd who cares...
Also, back in the olden days(I forgot when) a guy got a job at a meat factory and wrote a book about his experiences. Apparently, careless workers can get parts of their body chopped off and blended in with the meat, and mice run around it the tube that they use to make sausages, so you could potentially be eating human and mouse poop. This is why I don't eat hot dogs.
This is why you eat kosher food. They have strict rules about eating insects insect, and the food is generally much cleaner
Yummy! What doesn´t kill you, makes you stronger... Ignorance is bliss I guess...
So... There's a lot of bugs in food. Shocker. This was so stupid, my brain hurts.
Some things like the hot dogs and the ice machine, yeah, you should take care to avoid because those are some real health concerns or just plain nasty. The rest though? Even if all of it were true then the only way to avoid it would be to mever eat anything. Ever. Except the maggot cheese and literal poop coffee. That's just disgusting.
Well, I used to eat play-doh when I was a kid, so I think I’ll survive a few bugs and some poop.
Isn't play-doh just starch putty with a ton of salt and food colouring? That's why it can grow mold.
Load More Replies... It was all about insects and poop. I liked it, but I was expecting a bit more out of it.
When tomatoes travel on conveyor belts to make Tomatoe Sauce/Ketchup, the ones that fall off are shoveled up off the floor and thrown back in...was told that as a kid by a friend that worked for Rosella. Still do not care, have dropped plenty of tomatoes on the floor in my lifetime, did three yesterday alone.
These mentioned the highest allowable levels. Most marketed foods in the U.S.will be of a higher quality.
We need to eat something anyway... for peets sake :) everything is organic... we are organic at the end...
The only surprise here is the bug and poop content that American authorities allow in food.
Ummm... you do realize that most of these foods can be considered vegetarian, right?
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