Four cups of flour. Two eggs beaten and a cup of milk. Half a cup of melted butter, a teaspoon of salt and a dash of human hair.
This may not sound like the typical bread roll recipe, but human hair is a common raw material source for l-cysteine, an amino acid frequently used in baking to help reduce mixing time for dough.
The most common source of human hair, of course, is China, where 1.3 billion heads provide an inexpensive supply for the leavening agent found in bagels, croissants, rolls, crackers and other baked goods.
While western countries such as the United States worry about the tide of cheaply produced consumer goods flooding their markets, Chinese products are quietly flooding into the global food supply as well.
A pizza crust consumed in New York will probably contain l-cysteine derived from Chinese hair strands. It was a small part of the worldwide amino acid market, which was forecast to reach US$7.45 billion this year and $9.73 billion in 2009, Freedonia Group said.
'China is the biggest food additives producer in the world today,' said Krishna Kumar, managing director at industry researcher Giract. 'There's hardly any area [of the market] they are not looking at.'