Food Industry Secrets: What They Don’t Want You to Know

Some Truths Are Better Left Untold.

Just remember the old saying that "ignorance is bliss." People started saying that whenever ago because it's really true. There are certain truths, hard and brutally eye-opening truths in this life, that we're simply better off not knowing about in the first place.

When it comes to the book of secrets that the food industry is keeping under lock and key (seemingly literally sometimes), there are some daunting revelations, to say the very least. Here are just a few food industry insights recently shared by Redditors.

There's Often Nothing Natural About Those Flavors.

Yes, as fate would have it, those allegedly natural flavors aren't so natural at all. Redditor u/irony_in_the_UK writes, "The "natural flavors" are just big jugs of glycerin with hyper concentrated flavoring in it. Banana flavoring is fairly flammable." So, don't go messing around with banana flavoring any time soon.

Organic Honey May Not Be So Organic After All.

Take a deep breath. We know that wasn't an easy truth to digest. But Redditor u/toad__warrior writes, "Beekeeper checking in - there is no such thing as organic honey. I do not treat my bees with chemicals, but I have no idea where they get their nectar. A bee can fly up to three miles from a hive to get nectar. It is virtually impossible to guarantee they have not gotten nectar from a chemically treated source."

Chocolate topping on donuts in a candy workshop. Pastry, dessert, sweet, making — LuckyBusiness/istockphoto

Chocolate Covered Donuts Might Not Be So Covered In Chocolate..

It's all too much already. Alas, Redditor u/gil_beard writes, "When I worked at a mass production bakery the chocolate for the chocolate covered doughnuts came in giant frozen blocks of 4x4 pieces and contained no actual chocolate whatsoever. When unfrozen it was like some sort of nasty-smelling paraffin wax that I would break up with a hammer and place into a melter that would then pour over the doughnuts."

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You Are Likely Eating More Salt/Butter Than You Signed Up For.

Yes, there could be a darker reason behind that headache that seems adamant about following you around more often than you'd ever have thought it could. Redditor u/Greylings writes, "The reason restaurant food tastes better than what you make at home is probably because it was drowned in butter or oil. Also MSG is in nearly everything. Totally safe and delicious. And it definitely isn't what is giving you a migraine. The fact you ate 4,000 calories and 3 times your daily salt intake is probably what gave you the headache."

They Shouldn't Have Brought Cheese Into This.

We were having a hard enough time as it was, digesting the prior information. Now we bring cheese into the mix. Oh no. Redditor u/anon56778903276 writes, "A lot of the processed cheese and cream cheese is all the same recipe we just switch the labels and packaging for the different brands we run. Source: I work in a cheese factory in a company that services 75% of America's domestic market."