5 (Disgusting) Ingredients You Probably Didn't Think You're Using...Until Now

1. Crushed Insects
Next time you're in a cactus garden, you might see some small scaly looking insects on some plants. They look something like this:

They look so crunchy and squishy

The last thing you'd ever think of doing to them is touch them or eat them even... right?

UHMMM....

These scaly insects are actually being farmed and harvested for one thing: the color red! Yup everything that you probably use which is of a shade of red probably has these little crawling things as one of its main ingredients. That little lipstick of yours, that red shirt you are wearing and even that red gum you are chewing. Yum! What they do is they dry the insects and then crush them. Some guy probably decided to crush these little pests for no reason and then decided to use the guts of this insect for his food....

2. Whale Crap or poop
We all have heard of the never-ending fights between whales and Giant Squid but this usually ends with the squid beeing digested by the whale. However not all parts of the squid is digestable like the beak which is pointy and sharp. Imagine the pain you'll feel if you accidentally swallowed a knife. So to protect themselves, sperm whales produce a waxy substance inside their stomachs called ambergris to make the passage of the sharp stuff easier. Of course, in time it collects inside the stomach so the only way to expel it is either through the whales back end or the mouth... Imagine the smell either way :-/

It doesn't smell like whale poop now but still looks like it... Just a li'l bit dried out

SO?
Well the thing is, ambergris, after it oxidizes and becomes all waxy and greyish (with still some poop on the side sometimes) smells musky (or funky) and is being used for all those European perfumes you loved to use to impress that girl or that guy you have been using. What you didn't know was you were actually spraying some whale crap on yourself to make you smell alluring...

3. Cow Poop
Cow dung doesn't smell the loveliest among things. You wouldn't think of putting it on your body much less of eating it right?

RIGHT?
Well just recently, Japanese scientists were able to extract vanillin from cow dung by heating it. So probably, the next time you eat that satisfying vanilla ice cream or use that vanilla-smelling perfume, think about this too:

Mmmmmm... tastes like vanilla with just a little bit of grass

4. Insect Secretion
We've had dead insects in this list so what's worse than that? Well we've had bodily secretions on the list too from whales why not insects? Oh we have one on the list too? great! Shellac is that thing which makes a lot of things from doors to tables shiny. Where does it come from? the lac bug secretes it as it lives inside the bark of some trees.

AS LONG AS I DON'T EAT It.... oh...
Shellac is also used to make those apples oh so shiny and those pills so appealing. Hey is that a glazed candy with a shiny coat? great...

5. A Beaver's Behind
Apparently, that "Natural Flavoring" you see in Vanilla or Raspberry ice cream is there for a reason. Would you eat it if you found out it came from some body parts near the anal glands of a beaver. Castoreum is basically the secretion from these parts which is mixed with the urine by the beaver when it's marking its territory. For some reason, this wiseguy decided to collect beaver pee and put it in his ice cream... and ended up eating vanilla-flavored ice cream.Could this be the reason why Haagen Dasz is so expensive?