Naturally, the food industry defended this practice, claiming it made the meat easier to distribute, and would also "prevent shrinkage," like a synthetic chemical fluffer. For once, thankfully, the government wasn't buying it; during a congressional hearing on the practice, they showed one package of meat that still looked pink and edible after two freaking years, at which point the meat could probably eat you instead.

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The FDA hasn't banned this practice outright, since injecting food with mysterious science gas has some benefits, but that's why packages of ground meat now often say "color is not an accurate indicator of freshness." This also heads off the food industry's other plan to paint the meat with red nail polish.

But how do they make almond milk, anyway? If almonds had boobs, we probably would have noticed by now. Put simply, they take water and add a bunch of ground-up almonds to it. And by that, we mean that around two percent of Alpro "almond" milk is actually almonds. A handful of almonds is 160 calories, while a cup of almond milk is only 30 calories; to get the same health benefits as that handful of almonds, you need to chug an entire carton of almond milk like you're joining the world's wussiest fraternity. Almond milk has more potassium and vitamins, but those things are directly injected during the production process; it's like they tossed a single multivitamin into the mix.

Not only that, but this obsession with almonds is ruining the environment. California is the source of maybe 80 percent of the world's almonds, and almonds require water, by virtue of being things that grow. Meanwhile, California is also suffering from nearly unprecedented droughts, while almond farmers siphon off water from underground reserves to keep growing their crops. We'd make a pun with the word "nuts" right now, but Cracked HQ is in Santa Monica, so we're too dehydrated to think of anything.

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So our most populated state is going thirsty so we can provide the world with its favorite candy-ruiner and pretend we're too good for regular milk. Nice, everyone.

So you decide you'll be more conscientious and look for actual "whole wheat" bread this time. But the joke's still on you, you incredibly gullible customer; if you buy some bread specifically because it's whole grain and you don't want your body limping its way to old age, you might be surprised to learn that many breads labelled as "whole grain" aren't wholly grain -- they're more like "barely over half grain." It's bullshit, and it's also perfectly legal.

Basically, if a package doesn't say "100-Percent Whole Wheat" on it, you can bet your continuously expanding ass that it is significantly less than 100-percent whole wheat. It may in fact be as low as 51 percent. That's the minimum amount necessary for the packaging to contain health claims, and we imagine that bread companies won't be bumping it up to 52 percent out of the goodness of their hearts. So remember: If it's not 100-Percent Whole Something, it's probably 49-Percent Bread Garbage.

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And we're not talking about some specific kind. Pretty much every kind of rice you can think of has way too much arsenic, with the highest levels found in those which grown in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. And this isn't just rice itself; every rice-related product has arsenic in it as well, like rice cakes and Rice Krispies (Kellogg's has gone through three Crackles and two Pops for this exact reason). One serving of rice cereal might be enough to put a kid over the maximum level of arsenic they should have in a week. But they had it coming for trying to poison their moms with those crappy kindergarten rice art projects.

Now, you probably won't eat enough rice to drop dead, unless you're a really picky sumo wrestler or something, but the American Cancer Association still warns that rice is one way you could get arsenic poisoning. Because yeah, besides irregular heartbeat, liver or kidney damage, and decreased blood cell count, cancer is one of the possible side effects. And don't think you can avoid the arsenic by eating brown or organic rice all the time. Arsenic tends to build up in the brown outer shell of the rice, which is scrubbed away to make the more child-friendly white rice; brown rice is white rice without all that arsenic scrubbed off.

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Damn. Maybe we should avoid foods that contain arsenic in them -- which, according to the WHO, include "fish, shellfish, meat, poultry, dairy products, and cereals." That leaves ... candy. Eat tons of candy and you'll be fine, probably.

So it makes sense that the FDA would track those slightly better than China tracks DVD pirates, right? Yes it does, and that's why we were very confused to discover that a whopping 35 percent of all food recalls in 2012 were due to food allergens. How does that happen? Doesn't the FDA know what companies are putting in their food? You're not allowed to put in whatever chemical shit you want, right? Do hypothetical questions ever have good answers on this website?

Apparently no, the FDA doesn't keep track of everything those little industry rascals are putting in our food. The FDA has a term for certain additives: "GRAS," which stands for "Generally Recognized As Safe." They also have several separate lists of approved GRAS additives, but they're not all-inclusive. In fact, they consider the task of listing all GRAS food additives to be impracticable (because that sounds better than "can't be arsed to do it"). Not only that, but thanks to a loophole in an ancient law, food companies can declare their use of food additives to be GRAS and the FDA doesn't even have to know they're doing it. We aren't politicians, but we're fairly certain that declaring what foods are safe is the FDA's entire freaking job.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Since the FDA's taking a fairly chill stance and being the "cool dad" on the whole GRAS thing, it should come as no surprise that some comically dangerous shit is showing up in our food. A substance called mycoprotein, also known as Quorn (slogan: "it's like corn, but fucked up!"), has been showing up in vegetarian foods in the UK and the US, among other places, despite studies showing that it can cause symptoms ranging from nausea to anaphylactic shock. Others have been linked to things like fetal leukemia or testicular degeneration, which 50 percent of respondents agree is the worst kind of degeneration.

And if that weren't enough of a kick in the chemically-degenerated balls, it turns out that even if food does include one of the eight major allergens, it's not required to have a warning label. All they need to do is state the allergen somewhere on the package, such as in the ingredients list in tiny font. Essentially, if you have food allergies, you should encase yourself in a plastic bubble and only eat food you grew yourself.