Someone once told me that road kill is also thrown into the rendering plants and processed to make things like oil for beauty products, glue, and gelatin {Jell-O}. Is this true?
Absolutely! I used to work in a Roadkill (it’s one word, BTW) Reclamation Factory.
Our products would be used in gelatin, make-up, plastics, dog food, furniture and prosthetics.
So next time you’re driving at night and you see a 'possum…do the world a favour and swerve to hit it.
got roadkill?
Now don’t jump to conclusions about the spelling blessedwolf. After all, I’m not going to tell Rebeckah that that’s not how you really spell her own name.
Maybe she really is asking about whether there are bits of asphalt, tar, rocks and cement ground up and thrown into geletin after it has been horrifically slaughtered. After all, old roads have to end up somewhere, don’t they?
The answer is yes, there are pieces of road in gelatin. Tell me you’ve never seen it on the sides of boxes that those with dentures or fillings are recommended not to consume the product.
Animals too, huh? Wow, where do they find the room. Oh wait, I just realized it after I asked the question. You wanna know? You ready? Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
There’s always room in Jell-O
So glad you asked:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_103.html
It’s times like this that I am proud to be a vegetarian.
Oh, and I suppose Enderw23 is YOUR birth name??? ; )
My birth name is Becky. Blah. You want my address too? LOL
Actually, I want some sorta proof that roadkill {one word, I learn quick} is given to rendering plants. Not that I don’t believe you blessedwolf, I’m just looking for some sorta proof so I can back my statement up. & somebody pointed me over here. I think I’m in trouble. ;D
Thoth on a scooter! Where did you ever hear such an absurd thing?
Roadkill is too inconsistent to form the basis of something as homogeneous as gelatin. Every day the manufactory would receive a different mix of animal parts. One cannot maintain quality control when faced with stoats one day, then a glut of hedgehogs, and the random flat cat next Tuesday.
Roadkill’s only commercial appplication is in the fabrication of toupees.
Rebeckah, we can’t give you any “proof” that roadkill goes into Jello, because it isn’t true. Roadkill does not go into Jello. The factoid you’re talking about is what’s known as an Urban Legend or an Urban Myth. Go to this website http://www.snopes2.com/ and do a Search under “roadkill”, “Jello”, etc. and see what you come up with.
Only if the recipe calls for it. Most folks prefer tangerine slices, fruit cocktail, and (if they’re really trying to be fancy) those little, miniature marshmallows. For some unknown reason, these “Jello fruit salads” are nearly always made with lime Jello. (I suppose if you were using road kill, it technically couldn’t be called a fruit salad, so you could use whatever flavor Jello you wanted.)
~~Baloo
(Sheesh! Buncha clowns here.) 
No. Roadkill does not go into gelatin. Around a few dozen health and sanitation laws prevent it. I mean, the disease that causes the European Mad Cow plague does not get killed in normal cooking, so you might imagine just what lurks in stinky, squashed hides that have been simmering on the road for a few days.
Plus, no one is going to meticulously peel the hide off of the remains, which is all that is needed, not to mention that cow hide is much thicker and easier to obtain, plus contains more of the desired substance. I mean, you go to a leather shop and try to buy a whole, cured hide and they will cheerfully soak you a couple of hundred bucks, but the slaughter houses dump the hides at a few cents a pound as waste. Raw hides are used. Reasonably fresh.
The process is gross, but the end product is safe to consume and used in tons of goods. Heck, people eat things like tongue and blood sausage, baloney and store brand hot dogs, which are made out of worse things. I heard that baloney is made out of anything remaining from a pig or cow corpse after the butchering is done, and store or off brand hot dogs have a reputation of being made from similar things including Soya, oats and saw dust.
I’m still trying to determine if a stuff called ‘Danish Meat Food Product,’ which is a pink, spongy slab of something pasty in a small can, is actually food. It foams if you try to fry it and caramelizes like fiberglass.
Since Jello is now Kosher (or at least some brands of gelatine-suger-artificially flavoured dessert product are, and have been for a number of years), the source of gelatin for these is either artificial or vegetable-based, rather than animal-hide-based.
The Jello Web Site was not of much use.