iTecdent: An Insect Juice From The Starbucks ? (Updated)

Attn: If you are a strict ethical vegan/vegetarian, this article might concern you.

How often do you read & understand the ingredients in your food or beverages? What if you find dead bugs mixed in your drink?

This Dish Is Vegetarian.com has reported that the coffee company-Starbucks' colors its 'Strawberries & Creme Frappuccinos' using a dye made from the crushed & dried bugs/insects. The characteristic pink hue found in the drink is due to the use of dead insect extract. The specific ingredient/extract substantially associated with the color of the Starbucks' Strawberry Frappuccinos' is, therefore, not a vegan product.

It is primarily those multitudinous dead bugs, which implement fancy pink hue thus making the beverage seem attractive like a jazzy Hollywood diva. This Dish Is Vegetarian.com, has also posted the ingredient facts and delisted Strawberry Frappuccino from their vegan product list.

The dye used for pink hue is actually a 'cochineal extract'- derived from the dead & dried bodies of cochineal insects. Although the FDA and the nutritionists have not issued any official advisory, but according to the "World Health Organization," the 'cochineal extract' can provoke allergic reactions or asthma.

In 2009, Labeling of Bug-Based Food Colorings Will Help Some Consumers published by The Center for Science in the Public Interest, mentions the adverse reactions due to cochineal bug reported by dozens of consumers. Here are some questions that you might ponder;

1. Are you aware of the drink mixed with an extract from the dead insects?

2. Are you allergic to an extract from dead insects/bugs/beetles?

3. When was the last time you checked the ingredients in your food?

These questions might cause some stir or could have beleaguered your mind if you are practising ethical veganism. Therefore, when you consume any new beverage, make sure to confirm the ingredients to keep stomach or mental discomfort at bay & thus ignore further vexation.

For further information visit This Dish Is Vegetarian.com & find out why this is important at Change.org.

Update:
Starbucks has finally agreed to its customers and is going to stop using beetle extract in its products. The significant transition in its ingredient has been officially released in a statement by the President of Starbucks. Read the official statement in full here.