Lemons are refreshing and a popular feature in many beverages.
Anyone who has enjoyed a soft drink or something stiffer in a pub or restaurant will often notice a lemon wedge on their glass - but you may ask the bartender to give it a miss when you learn what the fruit is coated with.
You may or may not know that lemons are treated with a wax, which preserves the freshness of their bright, yellow skin. But it turns out that this substance is made of something that humans would never usually eat, the Mirror reports.
The unsavoury ingredient was revealed during during an episode of Channel 4's Food Unwrapped, where presenters Kate Quilton and Matt Tebbutt travelled to Thailand to uncover what the citrus wax is made of - and were shocked to learn that it contains shellac.
Beauty fans will know this as an ingredient in professional grade nail polish. And it turns out that the naturally occurring resin that gives manicures their shine is made by bugs in tropical forests, meaning that treated lemons aren't vegan. To learn what goes into making shellac, Kate's host Tomas took her out into the Thai jungle for a proper demonstration.
Kate was left stunned to learn that the ingredient was found in the trees, after Tomas cut off a branch covered in nests of insects known as lac beetles These beetles attach themselves to the tree for the duration of their six-month life cycle, sucking up the sap, absorbing it, and secreting it until they quite literally feast to death.
At the same time, each female will lay approximately 1,000 eggs before their short time is up. Explaining the process to an amazed Kate, Tomas said: "The shining product we make is from pee or waste from the beetles".
Viewers were in both horrified and amused by this revelation, particularly given that Kate had already sampled the shellac for herself, remarking upon its distinct taste.
One person shuddered: "Beetle waste and pee that's what wax lemons we buy... yuck." Another declared: "I knew that the wax on lemons is not vegetarian! Will never buy waxed again!"
As previously reported by Madehow.com: "The sap is chemically altered in the lac bug's body and is then exuded onto the tree branch. On contact with the air, the excretion forms a hard shell-like covering over the entire swarm.
"This covering forms a crust over the twig and insects. As the female lac bug is exuding the ingested sap, she is preparing to die and is providing a fluid in which her eggs will mature under protection.
"The males' role is to fertilise the female, and it is after fertilisation that the females' lac output is vastly increased. The adult males and females become inactive, and the young start to break through the crust and swarm out."
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