Editor's Note: This is the third in a series of six features on the science of food, running daily from March 30 through April 6, 2009.

DAVIS, Calif.—The green dot is everything in India. More than 30 percent of Indians are strict vegetarians, and among upper-class Brahmins with money to burn that number runs as high as 55 percent. Taken together, we're talking about nearly 300 million potential chocolate-eaters, a market nearly the size of the U.S. But there's one problem: the green dot.

That dot indicates that a product was made without animal products other than milk or honey. Without that dot, companies like Pennsylvania-based chocolatier Hershey Co.,which has been tapping India as a serious growth market, can kiss their profits good-bye. That's because candies like Whoppers—Hershey's chocolate-covered malted milk balls—depend on insect-derived shellac for their sheen and to preserve their shelf life for 12 months. It's also key to keep the candies clear of moisture and oxygen to so their fats do not break down, which leads to the development of off-flavors.

Shellac, sometimes called confectioner's glaze or resinous glaze, comes from the forests of Southeast Asia, where tiny-scale insects—principally Kerria lacca—suck the sap from host trees and secrete an amber-colored, resinous pigment known as lac, which females use to cling to branches. Harvesters crush these coated branches, then wash and sieve the material to purify it. Inevitably, it is replete with dismembered insect corpses. Also traditionally known as "beetlejuice," shellac is also used in everything from hair to molded phonograph records to floor varnish. And now it is also coats pharmaceutical pills, fruits and candies—including Whoppers. Though many Indians have a hand in producing the ingredient, few would put it in their mouths.

Enter John Krochta, 65, a food scientist and chemical engineer at the University of California, Davis. One fall afternoon, he leads me back to the temperature-controlled casting room where his group is busy experimenting with various formulations of edible film and their mechanical properties. For the past 20 years, Krochta's laboratory has been at the forefront of a revolution that could not only give Whoppers a green dot but could change how foods ranging from peanuts to smoked salmon are packaged. If his edible films catch on, hard-to-recycle packaging would become a thing of the past, and whey protein—a pesky waste product of milk and cheese production—would become white gold.

In the early 1990s Krochta received funding from the dairy industry to find a use for whey. He and other researchers had experimented with edible films using sugars and casein, milk's major protein, but whey's ball-like chemical structure was tough to crack. Moreover, competing water-based edible films kept flavors in and oxygen out—but they could not keep moisture in or out of foods. That meant that dry foods like crackers and cookies could become stale when exposed to moisture in the atmosphere, whereas raisins, dates and other dried fruits become stale because they lost moisture over time. By adding heat, and enzymes that speed up chemical reactions, Krochta's lab determined how to get whey molecules to open up, link together, and make a thin film.

"Whey proteins are globular and are held together by internal disulfide bonds," Krochta explains, "If you add enough internal energy it breaks these bonds, then you form intermolecular interactions." The film he created was not only edible and transparent, but it was also a barrier to moisture and a better barrier to oxygen. In 1996 he and Tara McHugh, then a graduate student, received their first patent for this technology that rendered "water-insoluble, protein-based, edible barrier coatings and films."

3 Comments

1. 1. Steely Dan 09:32 AM 4/9/09

   A sensible and informative article by Brendan. My only issue is with " .. upper-class Brahmins with money to burn .. " - wtf is THAT ? I'd suggest you take a look at the prevalent caste / wealth scenario. I'd very confidently assert that Brahmins are right at the bottom of the pyramid. So do let's not go by preconcieved notions here. The term High castes does is no way indicate bank balances or any tangible benefits.
   and before you ask --- i am Brahmin ( so I know what I'm going on about )

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2. 2. ernestgrumbles 11:54 PM 4/21/09

   Purified shellac is a stable, clean and renewable food and drug coating. See http://armalac.com/Inforelease3.pdf.pdf Also not sure why consuming the sap-based residue from a bug would be an issue (anymore than drinking milk from a cow). Just curious.

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3. 3. pcsarkar 02:56 AM 5/14/13

   What a load of rubbish. I am amazed that people write such misleading articles authoritatively for the Net, after going through a few scattered literature on a particular topic. Although lac, an insect product, is mainly cultivated in India, it's domestic consumption in the food sector is negligible. And most people, even in India, are unaware as to what it actually is. So there is no question of vegetarians or high class Brahmins or whatever, worrying about it. Moreover, lac is an EXUDATE. Non-vegetarian foods are generally from the FLESH / BODY PARTS of animals. So honey is an exudate of the bee and milk is an exudate from cows. Both products are favorites of vegetarians, because they are not derived from the flesh / body parts of the insect / animal. The term "vegetarian", itself is full of loop holes and is wide open to all sorts of interpretations. Gelatin is derived from hooves of milch animals.. yet it is popular in ice creams and jellies. Several nutritional supplements, for calcium, hemoglobin etc. have animal / fish sources, yet they are guzzled with gusto by vegetarians. The much touted chitosan, is derived from the shells of crustacean animals.
   
   And the discussion goes on..

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