(HealthDayNews) -- Danish pastries those goodies wrapped in cellophane and sold in fast-food stores for the morning crows -- are often mass produced with some pretty unappetizing ingredients, says author David Bodanis.
Because keeping that enticing sugar icing white is not easy, bakery companies use dollops of titanium dioxide, "the same chemical in the buckets of leftover white latex paint in the garage," says Bodanis in his book, The Secret Family.
And, he says, "Where some brown, caramel-suggestive swirls are needed, brown waxes, including the indelible rosin used on violin bows, are often used."
Besides the usual flower, sugar, nuts and oils, Bodanis says the really cheap pastries contain "processed chicken feathers or the scraped belly stubble from scaled pig carcasses
as their extracted proteins help in softening the flour that's used."
