10 Questions You REALLY Don’t Want The Answer To

By Nina Cresswell /

4. What's Actually In My Food?

You've got more chance of working out some ingredient lists than running into the Pope at the bus stop. Companies put all sorts into your grocery products these days, and we're here to traumatise you with the facts. Those sweet, vanilla or raspberry flavourings you find in sweets, ice creams and puddings? That's the anal gland juices of a beaver. Disgustingly, companies list is as 'natural flavouring' when it's really a bitter, orange-brown substance called Castoreum, which beavers excrete to mark their territory. Yummy. Fast food lovers amongst you - did you know that you consume 12 pubic hairs a year in those greasy treats? Even if you behave and go for a healthy side salad, most fast food restaurants don't list the exact ingredients in their lettuce. Why would they, you say, it's only lettuce after all. Well actually, many places dust their salads with propylene glycol to keep the leaves crunchy. You can find the same substance in antifreeze and sexual lubricants. Delicious.