eli5 what are “natural flavors” and why aren’t they described exactly
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Natural Flavors are anything extracted from a “natural” source (i.e. from literally anywhere except synthesized in a lab), and given how many different ingredients and chemicals within those ingredients there are, that could be *literally anything,* from *literally anywhere.*
The label itself, “Natural Flavors,” is not an FDA regulated label, and exists only as a marketing gimmick. It doesn’t mean anything about the quality, purity, or safety of the ingredients. It’s trying to sell you on the promise that it is somehow “better” than the exact same chemicals synthesized in a lab, which generally just isn’t true or meaningful in any way.
A natural flavoring is defined by the FDA as “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, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”
Many of the chemicals that make up “natural flavors” fall under a category called “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS. The problem is that about 1/3 of GRAS chemicals have never tested, researched or approved by the FDA, but they’re still classified as GRAS and able to be used in our food. So take from that what you will.
Furthermore, the term “natural flavoring” has been defined by the FDA and has rules and requirements attached to it, but the term “natural” as applied to food products, has not been defined by the FDA and therefore allows for some degree of processing and synthetic / engineered ingredients in “natural” food just because it is poorly regulated.
Just out of curiousity what healthcare field involves this kind of work related to this topic?
Had a buddy who worked at a flavoring plant.
I was surprised to learn that “Natural (coconut/strawberry/bacon) Flavor” almost never had coconut, strawberry or bacon in it. 🤣😂
It was natural in origin, it was a flavor, and it tasted like bacon!
It can also be used as a way to hide the fact that they are using less expensive ingredients. “Natural maple flavor”? That’s not expensive maple syrup, it’s fenugreek seeds, which have a similar taste. “Raspberry and other natural flavors”? Those other flavors are probably apple or grape juice.
One of the reasons they aren’t described is because the “natural flavors” could possibly come from different sources depending on the location of the processing plant, time or year, prices, and availability of resources. For example “natural flavors” in a citrus-type product could contain lemon, lime, orange or other citrus fruits depending on the above factors. Instead of the packaging company having to print several different labels, and the processing plant having to keep track of which packaging goes w/ what recipe is currently being used they just keep a generic “natural flavors” which keeps everybody happy.
Natural flavour: Yoy know how when you eat a kiwi (the fruit, not a new zealand person) it tastes of kiwi (stil the fruit)? Thats a natural flavour made the natural way.
1 kind of Arrificial flavour: I made kiwi flavour in high school (or danish equicalent) chemesty. As a science experiment. Used some stuff yoy would not like to ingest pure. The ‘fake’ kiwi flavour was actualt just an artificial made molecule of the flavour molecule found in a kiwi fruit, thankfully we could clean it from residue of the not used up not so nice substanses enough to be safe/not unpleasant to taste.
Another kind if artificial flavour: sometimes you find a chemical that kind of tastes like something youknow and is nice, but chemicaly a compleatly different molicule. Like how buthanol tastes like almonds. Well, there u have it, a artificial almond flavour. Just dont go ingest it! Buthanol is not so good to drink. But luckely we know that because we tested it (because ppl realy like their alkohols and it sometimes is a byproduct of moonshine/spirits produktion). Some things we dont test properly like we do with any alkohol and THINK ‘well it might be safe’ but then later learns it actualt wasnt quite so safe or harmless. Like how some of tje artificial sugar flavours gives your tummy the runs… or we maybe later learns it gives cancer or detroys the liver or something. Or figure out it might mess witj your metabolism like some arrificial sugar flavour is acused of.
It is cheap though, artificial flavour. Way cheaper than growing tons of strawberry to mash and extract the flavour from. Just get the right chemicals, follow the recipie and remeber tl clean it up realy well (because fake strawberry flavour required the use of HCl acid, learned it because my primary school science teacher did it with another class) and now you can add strawberry taste to whatever you like.
I used to do R&D at a place that made natural flavor ingredients. You already have some decent answers here describing what is legally a “Natural Flavor”. Here are some more notes.
These ingredients are typically produced and sold as single molecules. For example companies make benzaldehyde “naturally” and sell that to a flavor house. The flavor house then makes a blend of x number of ingredients and sells that to food manufacturer. Food manufacturer then puts “natural flavors” on the label. In that sense, the only difference between natural and artificial flavors is the source of the molecules.
Most of these compounds have been known for a long time and can’t be patented. The only IP protection the flavor house has is to not tell the customer what’s in it and dilute it in something like propylene glycol or ethanol. I assume that’s why the law allows for only putting “natural flavors” on the ingredients list, to protect the flavor houses (big ones are IFF, Firmenich and Givaudan). So often, the food manufacturer won’t even know what is in the flavor package they are buying.
About the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) list. Many things on this list haven’t been tested for safety per se. That’s because they are found in food products we are already eating. For example, a lab finds compound Y in onions that is important for flavor. They go to the FDA and show evidence that humans have been consuming this compound at x concentration for centuries. FDA accepts the evidence and allows for use of this compound.
When people ask me about the safety of natural flavors, my only qualm is that you are using them to make crappy food taste good. There’s nothing wrong with eating a mixture of molecules found in tomatoes, but are you getting the benefit of eating an actual tomato? No.
Flavors are made from chemical compounds. Scientists isolate those chemical compounds and combine them to make different flavors using a flavor recipe. There are three main types you’ll hear about.
Extracts are made from the food itself. Vanilla extract is made by taking a vanilla bean and processing it to infuse the flavor in a liquid.
Natural flavor looks for cheap abundant sources of the chemical compounds and processes them to remove them and then recombine them in flavor recipes. A famous one was beaver anal gland secretions contain compounds for both raspberry and vanilla natural flavor recipes and for a time when beaver were being heavily used for fur, this substance called castoreum was used to extract these chemicals. As beaver aren’t harvested like that anymore, castoreum is expensive and no longer used.
Artificial flavor synthesizes these flavor compounds in a lab to use in these flavor recipes.
These flavor recipes are company secrets. If Sunny D put the recipe for its chemical soup used to make Sunny D taste like Sunny D (which as anyone knows, doesn’t taste very much like a fresh orange!) then it would be easier for other companies to steal and make their own drink.
As the book “Fast Food Nation” described it… if you take a banana and burn it, and the resulting burnt offering tastes like strawberries. Congrats you have natural flavoring. If it started as a bunch of chemicals to taste like strawberries , you got artificial flavoring.
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