Guest guest Posted September 25, 2007 Report Share Posted September 25, 2007 By mvenus929 - Posted on September 24th, 2007 Tagged: Diet • science I'm back, bringing you the latest of what is in YOUR food. For past articles, see Part 1, and Part 2. This time, I'm going to talk about edible films. No, not the type of film you put in your camera (though with digital cameras, that's quickly becoming a thing of the past). I'm talking about films placed over foods. Ok, ok. I know what you're thinking. "There's no film on the food I eat! Well, except for maybe on the mystery meat in the school cafeteria." Well, you would be wrong. Food scientists have managed to come up with a whole bunch of edible films to help preserve foods. Want some examples? Well, the most common one would be shellac. That's the stuff that makes those chocolates in those fancy boxes (and sometimes not so fancy boxes) all shiny. My personal issue is the shellac they use to coat those "Bites" that Hershey makes. It just feels weird when it melts in your mouth. At any rate, shellac is made from the secretions of a female beetle found in India and Thailand. So not vegan, and maybe not vegetarian either. Sorry you guys. Shellac is also used as coating on some apples. Another few examples of a coating... there is likely a coating of the crust on frozen pizzas, to keep the moisture in the sauce from making the crust soggy. In fact, a number of frozen foods are coated with these films. They're most often made from gluten (a protein from wheat), cellulose (an indigestible starch found in foods like corn), and other proteins. The great thing about this specific topic, though, is that there's lots and lots of research going on to find better films. Films to contain sushi. Films to line the bags of spinach to kill ecoli. Ground up film to be sprinkled on chicken to kill salmonella. Even a whey-protein and lipid based coating to replace the shellac (since shellac contains alcohol). I personally think some of these innovations are great. However, I'm a little concerned about them as well. There are products being made with fibers found in crab and shrimp that, if used as a coating, religious Jews wouldn't eat. The coatings made with milk proteins wouldn't be vegan. I hope that products are made to benefit these groups as well, and I know eventually it'll happen. Share this post on: • • • • • Vote ResultScore: 0.0, Votes: 0 mvenus929's blog • Login or register to post comments • 69 reads • Email this page • Printer friendly version I'm interested in knowing Submitted by sodamnbeautiful on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 5:37pm. I'm interested in knowing how and why shellac is used as coating on apples. I'm hoping organic apples don't have it, and if so how do I find out? I am a vegan, and I found that kind of disturbing, but can you cite your sources? Login or register to post comments • Email this page All my sources are cited in Submitted by mvenus929 on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 5:54pm. All my sources are cited in the form of links in the blog. I think the wikipedia article talks about shellac covering on apples. It's used in order to keep the moisture of the apple in. The natural wax covering apples have is removed during the washing process, so shellac replaces that. Probably the best way to find out if organic apples have it (they probably don't) is to look on the website of the brand of apples you get. See exactly what they do to treat the apples. Peter H Answers - Get better answers from someone who knows. Try it now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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