Ghost foods, that is when producers make you eat meat and you don’t even know it

Beef and pork gelatine, resin based on insects, isinglass: these are just some of the ingredients not indicated on the label by the producers, to the detriment of consumer rights. This time, the complaint comes from Foodwatch.

You buy a yogurt and you do not even know that it is made with beef gelatine. It happens, because the producer does not tell you. It is certainly not a new thing (unfortunately), but it is always strange when we discover that the products we eat contain substances different from those we imagine. This time about a dozen products are indicted, made known through the investigation of Foodwatch, a French NGO engaged in the struggle for consumer rights.

The seriousness of this is that these kind of ingredients are hidden. So often it is not even advisable to pay attention when going to the supermarket: it is a bit difficult to find out something if what they sell is not even indicated on the label, or if we do not know the origin of these ingredients. So it can happen that in a yogurt (Panier de Yoplait 0%) among the ingredients there is beef gelatine, when the label generically indicates "gelatine"; and the same goes for chocolate pudding (Le Viennois chocolat, Nestlé), inside which, without our knowledge, there is also pork gelatine.

Obviously there is nothing wrong from the point of view of health in the presence of animal derivatives in food, but it must be said. For example, if you follow a vegetarian diet you would certainly want to be informed if, in the orange juice you are buying, there are some dyes of animal origin (such as carmine, extracted from the dried body of the cochineal insect). Also because, after a quick glance of the ingredients and discovering their presence, a vegetarian would probably put that food back on the shelf and go on.

But this matter does not concern only a certain part of consumers and their ethical choices that accompany them to the supermarket: this is about protecting consumers, all indiscriminately, and their right to know what they are going to eat. Foodwatch points to the lack of transparency of the producers, not only because of the lack of information about the food composition on the label. Often, as mentioned, the food industry does not help consumers because on the label there are incomprehensible and incomplete indications, without specifying their origin. For example, Fuji apples just indicate "shellac E904" on the package, without specifying that, yes, it is a resin based on insect secretions.

It is not over here: often, in some types of wines or even beers you can find isinglass, egg white and even beef blood… What we can say, maybe the taste (and the eye) can be also affected positively, but it seems that consumer rights are a bit neglected.