“All Natural” may not be so natural after all.

Who would have suspected that the vanilla ice-cream sundae you just ingested may have come from the anal excretions of beavers?

FDA gives a lot of flexibility for companies to use anything “natural” to enhance flavours of their products.

Wait, but the “natural flavour” of my lemon lollipop must obviously come from lemons, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. If it were the case, the company’s use of “real lemons” in the lollipop would be their marketing point, instead of having to put “natural flavours” at the end of their ingredient list. Human hair and urine can be the “natural flavour”; if they discover that banana slugs have a banana flavour to them, they would most certainly forage for the slugs and use them to make everyone’s favourite banana cream pie. Don’t worry about these yet though, these items shouldn’t be in your foods… just yet. Or maybe they are and I’m just unaware of it. But here are some main ingredients that companies use for their “natural flavour and colour”.

Castoreum= natural flavour that is taken from beavers’ buttholes. It is often a combination of castor and anal gland secretions, along with urine. We’d assume that the secretion would smell rather unpleasant, but castoreum actually has a pungent, vanilla aroma, making it “suitable” for food scientists to include it into recipes. It can be found in things like your “all natural” vanilla instant oatmeal because it is way cheaper to use castoreum than real vanilla pods. Since they don’t want consumers to know about their use of beavers’ anal glands, they would label it “natural flavour”. Next time you enjoy your “natural” vanilla Breyer’s ice-cream cone, think of the brown molasses-like substance coming out of the beavers’ anal glands. Save the beavers’ bums and avoid “natural flavours”!

Aspartame= all chewing gums contain aspartame! There isn’t one brand of gum in the market today that does not contain aspartame. What you may not know about this “zero-calorie sweetener” is that it indeed is sweet poison. There have been many controversial topics about aspartame occurring in food products, but in my opinion, it is something that should definitely be avoided.

MSG (Monosodium Glutamate)= yet again, approved by the FDA as “natural flavouring”. It is most often used in Chinese food, as well as frozen dinners, making them taste fresher and smell better. This flavouring can also be found in canned soups, crackers, meats, and salad dressings. Some effects from regular ingestion of MSG would include obesity, eye damage, fatigue, and depression. Woohoo! Your favourite Michelina’s pasta meal even admits that they do add “a very small amount to balance and blend tastes”. Well, nice to know that you want to shorten the lives of your consumers. That’s the way to go.

Carmine= made from ground-up cochineal bugs. We all know of Starbuck’s very own “Barbie Pink”, “Strawberries & Crème”, “Starburst Pink”, or even the “Starburst Red” Frappuchinos. You may have even been so immersed in the beautiful vibrant colour that you immediately instagrammed the photo with the hashtags #starbucks #yum #addicting. It’s all good. No shame, no shame. I will spare you the details of how the insects are killed and such because I just know you are either eating while reading this, have just eaten while reading this, or is about to eat upon reading this. Let’s just say that perhaps strawberry yogurt parfaits and red smarties are really getting closer to being a part of mother-nature.

Of course, there are many more mystery ingredients in our everyday snack foods in the grocery isle. Your best bet would probably just be reading your ingredient labels and try to avoid anything on a box/package that says “all natural” or “naturally flavoured”; chances are, those are the foods with these delicious elements lurking within the package. If you want something orange flavoured, why don’t you just snack on an orange? That seems like a promising way to go, doesn’t it?

Oh and for my fellow vegetarians/vegans out there, most apples are coated with a layer of shellac, which is derived from the Kerria Lacca bug. I’m guilty of eating waxed apples myself… sorry poor little bugs from Thailand! Remember to invest in your health and buy organic apples, as apples are one of the “dirty dozen” of fruit and vegetables!

Happy eating! 🙂

Sources:

Mercola, Dr. “MSG: Is This Silent Killer Lurking in Your Kitchen Cabinets.” Mercola.com. Mercola, 21 Apr. 2009. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.

Brown, Adam Tod. “5 Horrifying Food Additives You’ve Probably Eaten Today.”Cracked.com. Cracked, 11 Mar. 2008. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.

“FAQ.” Michelina’s. Bellisio Foods, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.