driving me nuts: shellac article/photos?

[Silvan]

I know I saw a site somewhere that had all kinds of pictures of where shellac comes from. Lac beetles, harvesting, what raw shellac looks like with all the bug parts in it, etc. I've spent an hour googling, and I've turned up bupkis. I usually don't bookmark things, because I have gradually just grown dependent on remembering enough keywords to re-google something at will. Not this time.

Any ideas? Did I maybe read it in a book somewhere? I don't think any of my WW books have color photographs though, and this was color. I don't read WW magazines.

I'm trying to find this to satisfy my children's curiosity about the bag of weird looking orange bug doodoo I have on my desk, and to assure them that it's not made at the expense of using up some unrenewable endangered resource.

I have also just assured them that it's not really bug crap, but actually something more like solidified aphid honeydew. Is that actually accurate, or is it really more of a fecal material?

[Dave in Fairfax]

Silvan wrote: snip

[Jody]

After you show them it comes from bugs also tell them all the things they eat that is coated in shellac. Some things that come to mind are fruits and vegetables, some medication is coated.

[nospambob]

[Charles Spitzer]

candy, like m&ms.

[George]

Gotta ask. Fruits and vegetables????

And what does the alcohol do to them? Where I live they're waxed or oiled to _hold_ moisture, not dehydrated with alcohol.

Enteric coatings and candies, certainly.

[Keith Carlson]

Heard the one about the pirate who walked into a bar with a ship's wheel in his pants?

[Silvan]

relief. :)

[Conan The Librarian]

Yep. Do a Google search on "shellac coating fruits vegetables" and you'll find plenty of mention of shellac as a coating for fruits and veggies:

Vance Just say (tmPL): Shellac: it's a floor wax ... and a dessert topping!

[Silvan]

how the first article is about how there's a new process to replace shellac in this use with... PVA?! Oh yummy! It's not bad enough to eat bug doodoo, now they want you to eat glue.

Maybe this is a move to make fruit more popular with the younger crowd.

[George]

>> Chuck Vance