People shocked to discover gross ingredients in grocery bread loaves
This just might be a big hairy deal for carb lovers.
Best-kept secret ingredients are blowing minds on social media: Your grocery-store breads could very well contain traces of human hair, duck feathers, cow horns and pig bristles.
The gag-inducing food production practice was first revealed in a little-known study published in 2016. However, it’s just now going viral as more consumers discover that amino acids (also known as L-cysteine), used to extend the shelf-life of commercial supermarket breads, are “commonly synthesized” from human hair.
While some L-cysteine can be concocted in labs, a cheaper alternative is using human-grown locks for its natural protein element.
Most of the tasty tresses are reportedly from China, swept up from the floors of barbershops and salons, Vice reported.
L-cysteine is also often used to speed up the baking process — but don’t panic. The gnarly ingredients were only measured in trace amounts, according to researchers.
Those dead-set on not ingesting even the smallest amount of hair can opt to buy fresh-baked rolls. (Also, be grateful you aren’t a yeasty beer lover — because brewers have been tasked with turning sewage into booze.)
Alas, this is not calming the controversy on (where else?) TikTok: Viral videos detailing the hairy spice have racked up 21 million views and are spawning a barrage of bread-lover commentary.
“This is why I don’t eat bread anymore,” posted one skeeved-out commenter, while one social media watchdog chimed in: “Yet another elitist health influencer. It’s an amino acid.”
TikToker and “vegan living” influencer Renee Stakey then entered the fray to declare: “You are correct that it is an amino acid. But it is also made with human and animal products neither of which I’m interested in consuming.”
Beyond the bakery, when taken as a supplement — usually in the form of N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) — the human body processes these amino acids into into glutathione, a powerful anti-oxidant.
“NAC can help prevent side effects caused by drug reactions and toxic chemicals, and helps break down mucus in the body,” Mount Sinai has reported. “It seems to have benefits in treating some respiratory conditions, such as bronchitis and COPD.”
In other dough-related exposés, it turns out there’s a reason that bread bags in the supermarket have a variety of colored twist ties.
The ties and the tags on bread loaves are there to help specify when the slab was baked.
Although this system isn’t necessarily universal — some local bakeries might have their own systems — it is “widely used at commercial bread bakeries across the country,” Reader’s Digest reported.
Each color indicates a different day that the loaf was baked: blue tags show the bread was baked on Monday, green tags show Tuesday, red tags designate Thursday, white tags reveal it’s for Friday and yellow tags are for Saturday.
Because many commercial bakeries are closed on Sunday and Wednesday, those days don’t have their own colors.
Bakeries also color-code their tags in order to help their workers find the stale bread packages and replace them with fresh ones.
Therefore, it is uncommon to find more than two colors on grocery-store shelves.