The application of shellac is wide-ranging than most people think it is. And one of those applications is as glaze on fruits and vegetables sold in your fruit stands and grocery stores. “IT'S easy for Americans,” says former US Sen. Christopher Dodd, “to forget that the food they eat doesn’t magically appear on a supermarket shelf.” That may also be true for Filipinos. While the use of shellac in pharmaceutical products may have ebbed in the last few decades, its use in food, particularly as a protective coating for fruits and vegetables, has not. Its use has the specific advantage of extending shelf life, which is critical in ensuring that they are sold before they start to get overripe. The previous article (“Glaze of the lac bug”) noted that shellac is a natural form of plastic. On apples, for example, this “wax” coating increases the resistance of the skin from gaseous diffusion, particularly oxygen, which speeds up the ripening process. It was mentio
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