i had a friends round for a christmas meal as you do and one is a very strict vegetarian along with her 2 boys, and she said somthing to them that surprised me and made me chuckle (being the meat lover i am) that quality street chocolates contain beetle blood.

any one know if this is totally true? lol

Absolutely false. It is crushed beetle carcasses, not blood at all. It's from cochineal, a red dye which uses the beetles as an ingredient. Mind you, lots of people eat honey, which is basically made with bee saliva.

well i was wondering how on earth you would bleed a beetle.......... lol

Yes remember this from the smarties days.
Everything nowadays contains something that a lot of people may be horrified at.

Is the OP a Roses spokesperson?

As far as I am aware (unless Nestle are lying) Quality Street are vegetarian and do not contain cochineal

actualy i love quality street cant stand roses

just checked thier site and your right they are vegetarian that will be one nil to me when i see her next :P

A lot of foods contain cochineal - it's sometimes labeled up as E120 as well. It's used as red food colouring.

When something has down that it has no artificial colouring and it's got something red in there then they can be using cochain (although there are alternatives).

I'm not too bothered about eating any beetle parts anyway.

Ditto , who said lizard's should have all the fun.

And of course even if it was used, it would only be in those sweets that are red-coloured, so your friend would still be able to eat the penny toffees, the green triangular one, the hazelnut caramel, and many other tasty and nutritious favourites (although it may used in the purple wrapping papers, so don't eat that bit).

I am disgusted that they've removed the brazil nut toffee (the hard square navy blue one) and replaced it with a square of choccy cake topping and a rather rubbish toffee. I'm going to write to my MP. Sharpish.