Starbucks is Serving What?!

I dedicate this particular post my sister. 

Basically what I gather is that some person found out that their red or pink food dye that makes their Starbucks frappuccino a delicious-looking pink came from insects and this caused some vegans to get upset since apparently bugs count in the abstinence of eating animal products. You can step on them, you just can't eat them. Whatever, that's not really what I care about. What I care about is the chemistry, so let's talk about this red dye:

It is carmine. Carmine is the aluminum salt of carminic acid (shown above). Carmine is also know as natural red 4. Where does the "natural" come from? "Natural" means that it has been isolated from nature, meaning not synthesised in a lab by chemists like me, otherwise it would be referred to as "synthetic" or "artificial". In this case, carminic acid (and similar compounds) are isolated from the scales of insects. There are various methods to prepare this compound, and the more pure, the deeper the colour. 

This is the red in lipsticks, paints, inks, and food products. There have been instances of allergic reaction to this compound-as with most other chemicals, both natural and artificial. 

So if natural is not what you want in your food (FYI you can add this naturally derived chemical to juice and still label your product as having not artificial colours) and you would prefer not to have bug extract in your food, what is left for you is synthetic dyes. 

Synthetic dyes are ones that are made in labs by chemists like me. I like the idea of Starbucks having to switch to synthetics-it means I will be employable. (Ok, I am being a little facetious there.) Synthetic isn't bad either. Food dyes, cosmetic dyes are treated like any other consumer product and have to meet certain legislated standards, not unlike what I described for pharmaceuticals. But the draw back of going synthetic means that there will be some chemicals that have been derived from oil that are used in the process. It is all a trade off.  This particular compound, carminic acid, was first synthesised in 1991 in the lab of John Tyman: Journal of the Chemical Society-Chemical Communications, 1991, 18, 1319-1320.

While many dyes and pigments are derived from plants, not all are. This is a case where insects are used. Tyrian purple, also known as royal purple, was obtain from a kind of shellfish.