Here is why natural and artificial flavors are not what they seem

Natural: Yay! Artificial: Boo!

Most of us cannot help but feel this way when we meet these words about food products. Natural seems so healthy and just. Artificial? Well, for beginners, he has the word “artifice” – and all his deception and his implicit cunning – are practiced directly. But apart from instinctive reactions, the reality of what these terms mean on food labels are much less clear.

What is “natural” anyway?

According to Merriam Webster, natural means everything that exists or is caused by nature, not humanity. If you follow the logic of this definition, prepared foods cannot Never Qualifying themselves as natural because they have been implicitly manufactured by a person. Although yes, I guess your diet could qualify if it does not understand anything more than removing large bites from the weeds and animals that died of natural causes – let me know if yours the fact, because we should probably speak.

In this case, however, the definitions of the dictionary do not regulate food labels: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the fact. And what does “natural” mean, according to the FDA? Not much, actually. According to its website, the FDA has no definition of “natural” as it appears on food labels, and it is ready to allow marketing specialists to use it as long as food contains no colors, artificial flavors or synthetic substances. Therefore, apart from knowing what not In a box that proudly proclaims its content “All-Natural!,” You can’t really know big East in her.

But what about natural and artificial flavors?

On the right, this takes us to natural and artificial flavors, which are terms that the FDA defines and regulates. First of all, it helps to understand what the FDA defines as a “flavor”. According to article 101.22 of the code of Federal Regulations Title 21 (21CFR), an annual codification updated the rules of the FDA, a flavor is all ingredient “whose significant function of food is aroma rather than nutritional”. Thus, although the beef itself has a lot of flavor, its nutritional contribution to food is important enough for it to be considered as an aroma. But an ox extract which is added in tiny quantities for the flavor alone, and with little or no nutritional value, would be considered an aroma.

With regard to naturalness compared to the artificial, the FDA says that a natural flavor is derived from a “spice, fruits or fruits, vegetables or vegetable juices, edible yeast, grass, bark, buds, root, leaves or similar plant material, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products.” Basically, a natural flavor is derived from a plant or an animal. An artificial flavor, on the other hand, does not come from a source of plant or animal, and is instead from zero.

Is Natural better than artificial?

On the surface, a dietary aroma from a plant or an animal may seem more desirable than artificial. But believing in this way requires hypotheses that do not always hold under surveillance.

The first problem is that everything that comes from a natural source is not guaranteed to be good. Cyanide, for example, can be extracted from bitter almonds, but I would not recommend eating it. Of course, no one is authorized to use cyanide as a food additive, but the basic idea maintains that extracts from vegetable or animal sources should not be automatically considered to be safer or more desirable.

The artificial flavors, on the other hand, are not intrinsically bad. At a scientific level, a compound of artificially manufactured flavor is absolutely indistinguishable from the same compound derived from a natural source. As Gertrude Stein could have said, Vanillin is Vanillin is Vanillin.

But there are other reasons why we should not put too much stock in “natural” flavors. For a truly fun example, let’s look at Castoreum, a secretion that comes from the two bags of castor located under the tail of a beaver, right next to a pair of anal glands. (I already salivate.) It is classified as a natural food additive – because it comes from a source of animals, after all – but, as you have probably guessed it, it is not valued for the beaver -bouton flavor that it adds to food. No, Castoreum has tastes and feels vanilla, making it an option for bakery products, frozen treats and puddings. Yum! Just as mom was doing!

Admittedly, Castoreum is a very rare food additive, but it is always a very good example – that the source of an aroma is natural or artificial ultimately does not shed light on what it is or if it is something that you expect to find in your food.

April 2014