Ocean Spray Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice
From EatBibek
Ruby Red grapefruit contains cochineal, coloring from the shell of a South American Beetle. This is not safe for Sikhs.
More Info
I called Coca-cola today and they told me that Ruby Red contains an extract from an insect. Doing research online I found this:
Me: "...let me ask you this, [in] the
ingredients for the American Ruby Red, one of the things I've noticed in
there....and someone told me about this and I'm curious to find out if it's
true....one of the ingredients is cochineal extract?"
Representative: "Right. Cochineal extract is actually an acid. It's called
carminic acid. Cochineal and carmine are the same thing."
Me: "OK. Now is it true that this comes from some insect in South America?"
Representative: "Cochineal is actually the beetle that the carmine is derived
from. The carminic acid is the natural coloring found in the
shell of the cochineal beetle."
Me: "Now what's the purpose of that?"
Representative: "Well, if you took a Ruby Red and squeezed it into a glass you
would see kind of a murky pale color......When people think
of Ruby Red.....they expect a bright, ruby red, perky
color...and that's not what naturally [appears when you
squeeze the grapefruit]....So we do pride ourselves as a
company that likes to work with food products as naturally as
possible...so we don't put anything artificial in there......We
don't use any chemical dyes but we do have the carminic acid
in there as a natural color."
Me: "Really? And there was no other alternative like maybe an extract from different
colored grapes that maybe you could have tailored to...."
Representative: "No. To deal with the juice...and the high acidity of the
grapefruit....things had to be considered. That was the best as
far as how long the juice lasted. But it is derived from the
beetle and it's in quite a few products if you read their
ingredients."
Me: "Oh really?"
Representative: "[It's in] different types of aspirin and ibuprofens. It's a
natural thing. People have this misunderstanding that they're
consuming an insect. It's something that's naturally derived.
It's not an insect and it's not like we have a squashed bug in
it."
Me: "But you have to squash the bug to get it though, right?"
Representative: "Well, it's a process. A chemical process in a lab. It's
something that's just extracted from the shell."
Me: "So you're squashing the bug in the lab to get the extract?"
Representative: "I really don't know exactly what the process is. I really don't
know all the details of the process."
Me: "OK. So has it always been in the Ruby Red for all the 5 years it's been on the
market?"
Representative: "Yes it has. It's been in some of the other products like Ruby
Strawberry. So if you'd like to know every product it's in I
could...."
Me: "No that's OK."
Me: "I'd be curious to know though, in terms of quantity, how much....in either
milliliters or grams or whatever..."
Representative: "Actually that's proprietary information."
Me: "Ah, ok. So you can't tell me that?"
Representative: "I don't even know."
Me: "Ah, OK. Hmmm. Well I guess that about covers all the questions I had
involving the Ruby Red."
Representative: "You sure?"
Me: "I think so. I think so, yeah. In the other countries that you mentioned that it's
sold in, and you mentioned that they changed the amounts of the different
constituents of the juice. Is that[cochineal extract] also present in the juices for
the other countries?"
Representative: "I believe so, yes."
Me: "Oh, OK. Hmm. But just in different quantities...different amounts?"
Representative: "Actually 'that' (the color of the product) remains the same
and that has nothing to do with the flavor of the product."
Me: "Hmm. OK."
Representative: "Our red drinks which is all of the cranberry ones have no
color[ing] in them at all."
Me: "Now why is that?"
Representative: "Well, because cranberries have such a bright natural color
that we don't.......Cranberry juice is naturally red. It
doesn't need color. It's true to its name."
Me: "Mm-hm."
Representative: "If you took a grapefruit, squeezed it, it's not aesthetically
pleasing. Americans are very into 'things need to be aesthetic,
I need to look at it..does it represent what I think it should?' "
Source: http://www.yarayara.com/exposed/
