DO "FLAVORS" INCLUDE BEAVER BUTT??

JUNE 27, 2021

If you consume “natural flavors” or flavors such as “vanilla flavor”, “strawberry flavor”, “raspberry flavor”, etc. you might just be partaking in… Beaver Butt…

Castoreum (or beaver butt) is a substance described as "brown slime" that comes from the beaver's castor gland, which is located just next to its anal gland. Vanilla, strawberry, raspberry and other “fruit flavoring” are just a few of the ingredients listed that contain castoreum :/ But wait, it doesn’t stop there, there are MANY other things besides beaver butt found in “natural flavors” that are lurking in our food. Unfortunately, we’ll never know by looking on a food or beverage label, because the FDA considers it >safe< and they don’t require companies to say specifically what they're using as long as it falls under the natural flavoring guidelines.

And what are those guidelines you might ask... According to the FDA, natural flavors can include:

“The essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, animal meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional” (21CFR101.22).

Catch that at the end, it CANNOT be nutritional << meaning if it were strawberry purée going into the strawberry flavored item it would have nutritional value in it - that means “strawberry flavor” has zero nutritional value and who knows what GMO source of a strawberry is actually in our food!

So as harmless as their description may sound - what it means is - the food industry can use virtually anything found in nature (including genetically engineered fruits, vegetables, ANY part of meat and MSG which is derived from yeast) and label it as “natural flavors”. Natural flavors create a false sense of reality while you are eating and give off the illusion of real food. The flavors work against you, getting you addicted to processed food using the best part of a taste or even smell. They don’t want you to have the full essence of the strawberry – they want you to only experience the best 1 millionth part of the taste – so you get “addicted” and keep having to go back for more and more, searching continuously for gratification – eating more of that product which in turns fills Big Food Companies pockets.

The Big Food Companies are “hijacking” your taste buds one by one and the FDA couldn’t care less, because they allow these companies to get away with it. Most of us know artificial flavors derived from petroleum and crude oil aren’t good for us, but the ingredient “natural flavor” can fool the best of us. Natural flavor can legally contain natural occurring “glutamate” bi-products like MSG – which are known excitotoxins. These excitotoxins are some of the chemicals that cause your taste buds to experience irresistibility when it comes to food. Ever wonder why you can’t just eat one chip? Or one cookie? Or why you remember a taste of a product so distinctly and crave it uncontrollably? Natural flavors can be to blame. A lot of people think you shouldn’t blame these food companies, flavor chemists, or anyone else for people’s inability to stop eating and from getting obese – but when companies practice this type of trickery – you can’t help but realize we are all at a disadvantage. How much do you have to research and know about your food in order to trust it? Can we expect all people in all income levels to have the time to find and understand this knowledge? Shouldn’t we be able to trust the mustard or the oatmeal the grocery store down the street is selling to us? It’s amazing we can’t trust something labeled “natural flavor” – it sounds so simple, friendly and well natural… but really can be so misleading. What Can You Do About Natural Flavors? Humans were meant to eat real food – not fake industrial food created in a laboratory and that’s why I recommend not buying food with the ingredient “natural flavor” on the label. Who wants to be tricked or lured into thinking a food tastes better or smells better than it should or eating beaver butt for goodness sake!? If you find a product in your pantry or fridge that has “natural flavors” in it – take it back to the store and get your money back. Unless that is you’re ok with eating beaver butt...