Crushed Bugs in Your Strawberry Frappucino? Well, Yes.

You love it when food makers, like Starbucks, go the natural route, right? Well, in order to ditch artificial coloring, how far is too far? Using crushed red bugs for coloring?

A Starbucks barista recently blew the whistle on the coffee-maker's use of crushed bugs for food coloring by submitting a tip to This Dish Is Veg recently. She wrote:
"I'm a vegan who currently works as a barista at a Starbucks in the midwest, and I wanted to let you guys know that the Strawberries and Cream Frappucinos and Strawberry Smoothies at Starbucks are NOT vegan," she wrote. "The strawberry sauce we use contains 'cochineal extract.' My guess would be that the recipe changed about three or four weeks ago, when our strawberry sauce got new packaging. I was hoping you guys could help get the word out there so that no vegans end up drinking this formerly vegan frappucino by mistake! Thanks."
This Dish Is Veg explains just what "cochineal extract" is: "For those wondering, cochineal extract is a red dye made out of dried female cochineal insects. And to put things in perspective, according to PETA it may take as many as 70,000 cochineal to produce 1 pound of the red dye."
What do you think? Are you cool with a food coloring that comes from bugs?