Things You’ll Never Buy Again After Knowing How They’re Made

Some of the products in your home are full of terrifying and potentially dangerous ingredients. So, today we're going to expose lead filled lipstick, plastic pasta, and wrinkle cream that's made from babies as we explore some products that you'll never want to buy it again. Let it lippy. I'm known for my good looks, but I have a confession.

This pretty face isn't natural, and before appearing in a video, I like to look my best by putting on some makeup.

However, if you wear makeup like me, you should know that it might be made up of seriously toxic ingredients. See, lead is a toxic metal that can poison you if it gets into your bloodstream. And it turns out there are traces of it in your favorite lipstick, eyeshadow, and mascara. Ugh. My evening plans are ruined. In 2016, the FDA found that 400 of the most popular lipsticks in the USA contain traces of lead, including shades from L'Oreal, Maybelline, and CoverGirl.

Now, all of these samples included less than 10 parts per million or ppm, which is a very small amount, but scientists say that no amount of lead exposure is safe, and even teensy doses can cause high blood pressure, brain damage, and many other physical ailments.

Furthermore, the FDA sets limits of just 0.1 ppm of lead in food because ingesting it directly could cause major harm. Your cosmetics might contain 100 times this amount, but how did it get there? Well, while cosmetic companies aren't purposely filling their products with toxic lead, lots of them use color additives that are made from natural ores and minerals that are contaminated with lead when they come out of the ground. These rocks are tainted with tiny amounts of lead, so it's practically impossible to remove the toxic metal entirely and still get that particular shade of sunset red or blushing pink. you're so fond of. The FDA haven't strictly regulated this because you can only absorb a very small amount of lead when it's applied to your skin. However, they've noted that more lead is absorbed if you wear contaminated lipstick and lick your lips. And remember, scientists say no amount of lead is safe to ingest. So maybe you should opt for a more natural look from now on. Sickening scents. I don't need perfume because my natural musk is so delightful. But if you do, you might want to consider saving your money and switching to cheaper bottles in the future because some of the fancier products contain a pretty disgusting animal ingredient. See, when sperm whales eat their diet of squid, they vomit out the parts of the creature that can't be digested, like their beaks.

However, sometimes these parts can sneak through into their digestive system, which causes the whale's gut to secrete a waxy substance that protects its intestines from being punctured. Over the course of several years, the beaks and the wacky substance bind together to form a solid mass called amberress that is later ejected into the ocean. For years, scientists didn't know how the whales got rid of the amberress, and for a long time, they thought they probably vomited up. Although it's now believed that the substance eventually leaves the whale safely with its poop or grows so large that it fatally ruptures through its intestines. This sounds pretty disgusting, but believe it or not, amberress is crucial to the perfume industry. And just 2 lb of the stuff can be sold for as much as $40,000. See, while amberress stinks like poop when it's first ejected, it contains an odorless alcohol called amberine, which has fixitive qualities.

This means that when it's added to a scent, it makes it last much longer. So, luxury perfumemers extract it from amberress and add it to their product to make them longerlasting than cheaper offerings. Furthermore, when amberress dries out, it develops a more pleasant earthly smell. And some of the world's most expensive perfumes directly use it as an ingredient for its scent. Of course, finding amberris in the ocean to harvest is difficult and costly, and trading it is actually illegal in Australia, the US, and India to discourage whalers from killing sperm whales to obtain it. This means the substance is incredibly expensive to get your hands on, and only a few of the world's most luxurious perfumes use it.

So, the world's elite might look glamorous, but they're really dazzling their bodies with a scent that comes from whale poop. Gross.

something fishy. For some people, giving up alcohol can be incredibly difficult.

But I've got something that might just motivate you to go sober. See, while beer is famously made with barley, water, hops, and yeast, some brands that you might have drunk also contain a nasty ingredient that's derived from a fish's inards. The swim bladder is a unique organ that fills up with gas to let certain fish float up and down in the ocean. But when it's dried out, you can use it to extract a form of collagen called ice. glass. This gelatin-like substance has been used by brewers since the 19th century as a fining agent, which is added in the later stages of the brewing process to remove unwanted contaminants from the beer. The finding agent sticks to the contaminating particles and makes them clumped together so they can be easily filtered out, which makes the finished beer look clear and bright. These fishy findings have been used for this purpose for hundreds of years, but brewing has come a long way. Today, most brewers use vegan alternatives like gelatin, silica gel, and a red algae called Irish moss as a fining agent to filter out contaminants and give their products that same glossy finish. But it turns out the Brits love tradition because Eisenlass is still used by popular beers brewed in the UK like Fosters and Carling. Furthermore, over in Ireland, Guinness only stopped using Eisenlass in 2015. Even if you're not from the British Isles, you're probably not totally safe because some local breweries all over the world continue to use Eisenlass in their products to honor traditional beer making. So the next time you crack open a cold one, you should check out the ingredients label to make sure you aren't accidentally drinking fish inards. Pollinizing pests. We all know that the chicken nuggets and spray cheese in our kitchens is unhealthy, but if you're trying to avoid nasty ingredients, you can't go wrong with a nice piece of fruit, right? Not necessarily. You should see how figs are made. See, most fruits that grow on trees need to be pollinated with flying insects, like bees, and figs are no exception. However, unlike most fruits, their flowers and pollen are stored inside the fruit skin, so they're pollinated in a rather unusual and unappetizing way. The process involves a specially evolved bug called a fig wasp that will find an unpollinated fig and crawl through a tiny hole in its skin to get inside. In a male fig, the female wasp will lay her eggs, cover herself in the fig's pollen, then fly off to find another unpollinated fruit. And when her babies hatch, they'll do the same thing.

Yuck. Fortunately, male figs are inedible and we don't eat them. But we do eat female figs and somehow the pollination process is even grosser. In a female fig, the entrance that the wasp crawls through is so small that the creature actually loses its wings as it enters, which traps them with no escape.

Then once they've pollinated the fruit with pollen they gathered from a male fig, they slowly die inside the female.

Meaning that technically every fig you eat will have contained a dead wasp.

This is pretty disgusting. But thankfully the fig produces an enzyme called fison which breaks the wasp down, digests it, and absorbs its nutrients for ripening before you eat it. So there's no trace of a physical dead bug present in your fig newton. But still, each fig you eat is technically the delicious grave of a very unfortunate wasp, which is kind of off-putting. I think I'll stick to apples from now on. Chemical crops. Usually, it's pretty obvious when food is unsafe to eat, and everybody knows to avoid consuming moldy bread and discolored meat. But it turns out some of the scariest things that we regularly eat are completely invisible.

See, when farmers grow crops, weeds often grow around them and reduce the crop yield by stealing sunlight, nutrients, water, and space. Weeds can be killed with herbicides like glyphosate, but in the past that would destroy the crops, too. So, today lots of modern crops are genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides, so they can be covered in the toxic chemicals without dying. This lets farmers indiscriminately spray their fields with herbicides to keep them weed-free. But terrifyingly, it has also allowed glyphosate to sneak its way into our food products as the coated crops are harvested. Today, traces of glyphosate can be found in around 95% of oatbased food products and our drinking water.

And it's become such a common part of our diet that it's now being found in people's urine and breast milk. So far, we don't know how harmful the chemical is to our health. But in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer stated it's likely carcinogenic.

Furthermore, studies suggest that glyphosate can accumulate in our cells and build up over time, leading to infertility, birth defects, and respiratory diseases as we absorb more and more into our bodies. This is scary when you consider that an estimated 81% of Americans are regularly exposed to glyphosate. And scientists still don't know how dangerous it is. But it isn't the only chemical that can be found in crops. In China, watermelons are treated with a plant growth regulator called forcllorphinon, which makes the fruit grow very quickly. Occasionally, these melons have been given too much of this regulator and have grown so fast they've exploded. Seriously, farmers in Jangyang lost up to 115 acres of melons back in 2011 after they overloaded them with four chlorineron and turn them into delicious explosive landmines. This story went viral and it led to a rumor in the USA that florinon is a dangerous chemical that causes cancer. So, American consumers started avoiding fruit from China and melons that contained lumps and cracks as people started claiming it was evidence that the fruit had been grown with the growth regulator. However, not only is forklllorineron perfectly fine to eat and causes no health issues at all, it doesn't even cause cracks like this.

Watermelons actually get these lumps and hollow interiors when they're grown during exceptionally hot or cold conditions. And in this case, the concerns about eating four chlorophenon were just conspiracy theories.

Ironically, the growth regulator is already used in the US to increase the size of grapes. And the only risk that the chemical poses is to farmers picking up a fruit and having it explode in their face. So, keep eating your five a day, people. Controversial culling. For centuries, humankind has been forced to wonder why the chicken crossed the road.

But in my opinion, it was probably to get away from all the culling farms.

See, in the food industry, culling is when animals that aren't of use to the manufacturers are, well, deliberately destroyed. One of the most notable examples comes from the egg industry, where newly hatched chicks are immediately separated into males and females. Then the females are taken away and raised to lay eggs, whilst the males are taken off in bags and terminated.

[Music] They're either suffocated with gas or masserated, which is when they're placed on conveyor belts that push them into grinders. An astonishing 6 1/2 billion male chicks are exterminated every year worldwide. Although in some countries like France and Germany, the practice is completely banned for being too cruel.

In those countries, h producers either have to keep the male chickens and raise them for meat, import all their hens from other countries, or shut down operations entirely. In 2018, emerging technology was introduced to stop culling in the rest of the world that lets factories test the sex of a chick before it hatches. This would allow for destruction of eggs containing a male chick before it's actually born.

However, this process is expensive and timeconuming, so it isn't widely used on a global scale. Today, only 10 to 20% of European eggs come from coal-free hatcheries, and 300 million chicks are killed in the US alone every year. So, those sunny side ups that we treat ourselves to every morning are only possible due to a process that involves the destruction of millions of chicks in horrifying ways. On second thought, I think I'll skip breakfast today. Wrinkle remedy. From disgusting smoothies to questionable medical procedure, celebrities have come up with some deeply strange health fads as they strive to achieve eternal youth and beauty. But one increasingly popular celebrity trend is especially bizarre because it contains well foreskin. Look, I know it sounds crazy, but A-list actresses like Kate Blanchett and Sandra Bulock have tried and sworn by foreskin facial injections, and Oprah endorsed a brand called Skin Medicica that uses it in their wrinkle creams. This sounds insane, but there is some method to the madness. C4 skin cells from newborn babies possess a protein receptor known as epidermal growth factor or EGF. This stimulates the growth of proteins called collagen and elastin that are responsible for tightening and repairing the skin. So, when the cells are injected into your face or rubbed onto your skin with a cream, the extra collagen and elastin they produce encourages your skin to regenerate, giving you smoother cheeks and less wrinkles. Furthermore, just one piece of already discarded foreskin has enough cells to generate over a million treatments, giving lots of A-listers their highly priced foreskin facials.

Now, the epidermal growth factor used by Skin Medica is cloned from cells taken from a single baby over 20 years ago, but other treatments genuinely involve using new EGF from newborn babies in South Korea. And as you can imagine, there's some controversy over this practice. Supporters note that the foreskin is being discarded anyway, as it's taken from babies that have already been circumcised. But others believe it immorally promotes circumcision in infants as it allows companies to profit from the practice and the profit margins are huge. The EGF injections used by celebrities like Kate Blanchet cost around $650 per session. So the gross and arguably immoral practice really is only for the rich and elite. Personally, you couldn't pay me to use it, and I'd rather grow old and wrinkled than put something that gross and unethical on my face.

What the duck? No matter how much I eat at McDonald's, there will always be room for dessert. And there's nothing like biting into one of their hot and sweet apple pies. But although Mickey De's aren't known for being healthy, their famous dessert contains a particularly gross secret ingredient that's made with, drum roll please, duck feathers.

See, McDonald's uses an amino acid called lcyine in their apple pie dough, which essentially weakens the dough to speed up mixing while also acting as a preservative that increases the dessert's shelf life. Most lcyine comes from China, and while it can be made synthetically, that is more expensive, and the amino acid is believed to be derived from duck feathers approximately 80% of the time. That sounds pretty nasty, but believe it or not, the process for obtaining it used to be even grosser. Back in 2010, a Chinese company that produces lcysteine stated that most of it was extracted from human hair.

See, the amino acid also grows on our heads. And manufacturers would collect chop hair from the floor of salons and barbers in China to source the ingredients. Damn.

Before exporting the amino acid to be used in products all over the world. If you're not a fan of McDonald's, don't be smug because the amino acid is also found in most loaves of bread, frozen pizza crusts, and bagels. So, the bread you're eating now is likely sourced from duck feathers. And the bread you were eating back in 2010 was likely sourced from a pile of hair on a barber's floor.

Excuse me, whilst I go cry and vomit in the corner. Plastic pasta.

We all have our favorite comfort foods, and for me, nothing's better than crashing in front of the TV with some boxed mac and cheese. But I might have to kick my mac habit because in 2017, four environmental advocacy groups found concentrations of a potentially dangerous chemical called DEHP phalate and 10 popular mac and cheese boxes.

Phalates are plasticizers, which means they're added to hard plastics to soften them and make them more flexible.

They're not all considered health risks, but research into DEHB has linked the compound to increased rates of infertility, cancer, and block testosterone production in the human body when ingested, posing the biggest risk to pregnant women and young kids.

As a result, kids toys made from more than 0.1% of DEHP are completely banned in the US and the EU. So, finding it in your dinner is pretty concerning. The chemical isn't intentionally added to your mech as an ingredient. So, experts believe that the contamination likely comes from plastic packaging and equipment used during the manufacturing process. It's worth noting that the amount of DEHP found in mac and cheese is very small, but the FDA don't know how much DEHP it takes to cause harm, and they've stated that they won't know whether the amount in those boxes is truly safe until more research is carried out. Still, there's probably no need to completely panic and throw out your Mac. Scientists have said that while consuming any DEHP isn't good for you, they think you'd probably need to eat multiple boxes a day to actually see negative health effects, which I totally don't do.

Uh-oh. Wicked Wendy's. With their square burgers and Frosties, the food at Wendy's is pretty tasty. But that little ginger isn't all sunshine and rainbows. And there's one item on her menu that has a bit of a controversial past. In 2005, a customer called Anna Ayala was dining at a Wendy's in San Jose, California, when she found a rather disgusting addition to her chili, a human finger. The discovery gave a new meaning to finger food. And when she shared her story with the press, it blew up and received attention from big newspapers like the Los Angeles Times. Afterwards, Wendy's lost roughly $21 million in business as customers stopped eating there. And soon after, Anna hired an attorney to help her sue the company. However, as the San Jose PD investigated the case, they discovered that the entire story was a hoax. Sienna had a friend who'd lost their finger in a workplace accident and kept the severed digit. So, she came up with a plan to con Wendy's out of some lawsuit money. She cooked the finger at home before heading to Wendy's and covertly sneaking it into her chili. She almost got away with it, but fortunately, forensic testing could confirm that the finger wasn't cooked in the chili, and the police simultaneously established that none of Wendy's cooks or their factory workers had lost a finger. Anna was caught red-handed, and instead of defrauding Wendy's for money, she ended up in jail for fraud and was sentenced to 9 years. So thankfully Wendy's Chili isn't really made with human flesh, but its beef still contains some interesting ingredients that might put you off ordering it. One of them is an anti-caking agent called silicone dioxide, which is actually the main component in sand. Wendy's chili contains loads of this stuff to stop the sauce from clumping together. And although it's safe to eat, the idea of chowing down on sand at lunch is kind of gross. Additionally, according to an ex Wendy's shift manager, the meat in the chili is made from expired burgers. They take leftover meat that has been stored for too long and is too tough to be used in the burgers and instead use it to make their chili. Man, that puts the con and chili con carne and instead of asking where's the beef, we should have been asking what's this beef the whole time.

Sakur ew. France is well known for its unique food and lots of people are grossed down by the idea of eating snails and frogs legs. But I tell you, I'd rather have a bucket of snails than this monstrosity.

See, this Frankenstein finger is a type of sausage called unuette that's made from a pig's bowel, stomach, and colon, all wrapped up in an intestine casing.

If you flunk biology like me, the colon is part of your intestines which processes feces and even after it's clean, the smell never fully leaves. So, and duette is famous for literally smelling and tasting like pig poo. Food standards in France do make sure that all physical poop is cleaned out of the sausage before it's served, so it's safe to eat if you can get it down without throwing up. Some brave tourists who've tried the delicacy say it's truly awful.

But lots of French people who've eaten onet their whole lives love the flavor and claim it's delicious. Still, I don't know if I could stomach it. And if you ever go to France, I'd recommend looking out for Andoulette on the menu and avoiding it. Chemical chips. If you're eating chips while watching this video, then one, gotcha, and two, you might want to put the bag down. Before you start to panic, rest assured that unlike the other food products we've covered so far, your favorite chips aren't made from stuff like dead was plastic or mushy slime.

And they really are crafted from good old-fashioned potatoes. But once the potatoes have been cut, they're often treated with a pretty disgusting chemical. See, it turns out lots of chips are bleached white with a specific chemical called sodium bulfite, which is used in, wait for it, toilet bowl cleaning agents. Yum. B sulfite releases sulfur dioxide gas that prevents bacterial growth, killing the germs in your toilet and on your chips. This gives chips a longer shelf life and it also bleaches them to stop discoloration and make them look tastier. In small quantities, the FDA considers it safe enough to go in your food. Yet, some people can have sensitivities to the bulfite, which can potentially cause respiratory reactions, low blood pressure, and gut problems. Although it's extremely rare, these conditions can occasionally be life-threatening, especially for people who suffer with severe asthma. But unfortunately, a safer substitute hasn't been found to bleach out discoloration and extend a chip shelf life. So, for now, we're stuck with the bisulfite. And if you have severe asthma, keep your inhaler handy or up for a new snack. Creepy cuisine.

Rats, insects, and maggots have a reputation for being dirty and carrying diseases. But if you eat chocolate, pasta, tomatoes, or mushrooms, you might be consuming parts of these critters on a regular basis. See, in the US, the FDA allows 60 insect fragments and one rodent hair as a byproduct per 3 and 1/2 o of chocolate. Furthermore, they allow up to nine rodent hairs in a 16oz box of pasta, up to three maggots in a 26-oz can of tomatoes, and 20 maggots and 75 mites in a 3 and 1/2 oz can of mushrooms. These ghoulish ingredients are enough to turn an Italian dinner into creepy crawly cuisine. But unfortunately, the FDA have explained that it's impossible to keep produce entirely free from natural defects from farm to table. So, they have to make these allowances. To make matters worse, in some common food products, insects are intentionally added as ingredients.

It turns out most red colored candy contains a dye made up of a small South American insect called cockal. The critters live on cacti, so they're harvested from the plants before being dried out and crushed up with about 70,000 insects yielding only a pound of dye. Even if your favorite candy isn't red, you should know that its smooth, shiny coating is created with shellic flakes, a substance derived from the lac bug of Thailand and India. The bugs secrete shell as they move around and when it's collected and dissolved in alcohol, it creates a glaze that's used on a ton of candies like jelly beans.

And all that has spoiled my appetite and my kitchen cupboard currently looks more fear factor than fine dining.

Toxic toothpaste. Brushing your teeth everyday is pretty essential, but it turns out you should be careful about the toothpaste that you use to clean your pearly whites. See, some popular toothpaste contain parabens, which are chemicals that are regularly used as preservatives and cosmetics. They're used specifically to increase a product shelf life by preventing the growth of mold and bacteria. But studies have shown they can actually cause hormone disruption when absorbed by the body by imitating the hormone estrogen. This makes your hormone receptors think you have more estrogen than you actually do, which increases your breast cell growth and increases your risk of growing tumors and developing breast cancer. But the dangers don't stop there. Other toothpaste contain a chemical called tricloan, which is also included to kill bacteria. However, some studies have found that exposure to trickloan can lead to skin irritation and cause people to develop new allergies and sensitivities to certain foods.

Furthermore, tricloan is an endocrine disrupting chemical too, which means it can also mess with your hormone system.

Unlike paraben, studies have shown that high exposure to tricloin can actually lower your testosterone or estrogen production, leading to decreased fertility rates in both men and women.

As these studies were released, the FDA completely banned the use of trickloin and antibacterial soaps in 2016. But surprisingly, trickloin and parabens are still allowed to roam free in our toothpaste because the chemicals are typically spat out after you brush your teeth, greatly reducing your exposure.

The FDA found that the intake of parabens and toothpaste corresponds to around 0.21 mg after brushing three times a day. For context, the average person ingests around 0.23 milligs each day through the food they eat. So, the small amounts in toothpaste shouldn't cause any major effects unless you have a reaction. Parabens and trickloan are effective at reducing plaque and gum disease while keeping your toothpaste mold-f free. So, the FDA believes the benefits of using them outweigh the risks. However, these chemicals are genuinely harmful in higher doses and some toothpaste brands don't use them while being just as effective. So, it might be advisable to read your toothpaste ingredients and avoid them just to be safe. Or do what I do and avoid brushing your teeth at all. Dangerous drinks. Sometimes I need something stronger than a cup of coffee to get me through a long day, and that's when I turn to energy drinks. But unsurprisingly, this isn't a good idea because these high octane beverages are pretty bad for you. Lots of popular drinks like Monster and Red Bull are famously made with torine, an energy boosting ingredient that was first isolated from bull bile in 1827.

Somehow, this led to a long-standing myth that torine was actually created from bullsemen and a rumor that some popular energy drinks actually contain this disgusting ingredient. However, while Red Bull did allegedly get its name from Torine's nasty origins, the torine used in the drinks is now produced synthetically in labs. So, it's totally sanitary for us to drink. That sure is a relief, but we're not in the clear because what energy drinks do contain is a bucketload of sugar. A 2015 survey of 197 energy drinks found that half of them contained an average of nine teaspoons per 11 flu ounces serving. It noted that a standard 16o Monster Energy contained around 13 teaspoon of sugar. But even there beaten out by Rockstar's tropical guava flavor, which contains a whopping 20 teaspoons per 17 flu ounces. This is already three times the maximum recommended daily intake for women in a single can. To make matters worse, the strongest drinks surveyed also contain an insane amount of caffeine. Bang energy drinks contain up to 300 mg per can, which is more than three cups of coffee alone. The FDA maintains that 400 mg of caffeine a day is the safe limit, and exceeding it can lead to headaches, muscle tremors, and an irregular heartbeat. So, in lots of cases, just one energy drink is almost your entire daily quota. Of course, energy drinks aren't the only products that are stuffed full of unhealthy ingredients. The best spread on bread has to be Nutella. And for a few years, there was nothing else I'd have for breakfast but Nutella on toast. But unfortunately, it's another shameful sugar fiend. And we find it guilty as charged. Did you know that 57% of that hazelnutty spread is just sugar? That means that if you eat 2 tablespoons of Nutella, 1.4 tablespoons of it was pure sugar, which is 75% of a woman's recommended daily intake and 1/3 of a man's. So, if you have some Nutella pancakes and an energy drink in the morning, it's likely that you far exceeded your sugar quota. As we all know, regularly consuming too much sugar will ultimately lead to problems like diabetes, heart disease, and rising blood pressure to name just a few. So, experts reckon if we want to avoid an early death, we should probably treat these products like a rare treat instead of part of our daily diet. But, it tastes so good.

Well, with that, I need to go clear out my fridge and eat an apple. I certainly didn't expect to find so many gross ingredients in the things I buy. But which product surprised you the most?

Let me know in the comments.