We are all concerned about our health and natural makeup and organic skincare is an essential part. But so much of how we look is connected with what is going on inside. So it’s essential that we do what we can to eat foods that don’t contain anything harmful. Unless you are cooking your meals yourself, you don’t really know what is in your food. Is it really natural? If makeup products that contain harmful toxins can damage your skin, food containing toxins will harm your inside and cause other ill effects.

With makeup products that aren’t ‘natural makeup’ or ‘organic makeup’ companies can be very deceitful as to how they label their products. The same is true of pre-cooked or ‘ready-made’ meals. Companies are allowed to use misleading names for food additives or they can even leave out mentioning them altogether. They just use the term ‘natural flavours’. Recently in the US many will have heard about the ‘pink slime’ scandal. But did you know that beetles and beaver anal glands could be in your smoothies?

This 2 part blog will show why we need to be just as careful with our food choice as we are in purchasing natural makeup or organic makeup. Here are some of the unpleasant ingredients that could be lurking in your food.

• Cochineal beetles – This type of  beetle is crushed up and made into a red colouring that’s used in a wide range of products including yogurts, cocktail cherries, jams and jellies, tomato products, and Starbucks Frappuccinos. This of course can be classed as natural because it occurs naturally. But do we really want to be digesting crushed up beetles? This unfortunately is a result of going ‘natural’ because we are avoiding synthetic colourings.
• L-Cysteine – This is an amino acid and it is used to help soften the dough of bread that is mass-produced. It comes from human hair! Sometimes also duck feathers are used. In fact 80% of the L-cysteine which is used on the market comes from human hair (although McDonald’s for it’s baked goods uses the duck-based variety). So want to complain that you’ve got a hair in your roll? May not be just one.

• Castoreum – This is used in cheap vanilla and strawberry ice cream as a ‘flavour enhancer’. It is obtained from the anal secretions and urine of beavers – so again a totally natural product. In fact it is so natural that in the US the FDA has classed it as ‘safe’. It is also used as a fragrance in cosmetics. Puts a new idea to the term ‘toilet water’.

• Isinglass – If you thought that the list was becoming like something on “Fear Factor” then this is the next product – “dried fish bladder.” This binds the yeast and forms a sediment at the bottom of beer casks and gives the beer a distinctive golden glow. Why is it used? To speed up beer production.

• Gelatin – Well we all know this is obtained from boiled animal connective tissue. So products like ice creams and jellies may not be suitable for vegatertians. There are some good vegetable-based gelatins on the market if you find the idea of boiled bone or skin powder a little too nauseating.

So of course is may not change our eating habits but it’s good to know what we are digesting. Natural makeup will only help achieve a natural look of beauty if we take care of what we are ingesting.