DailyDirt: All Natural Doesn't Necessarily Mean Good For You…
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
A growing trend in food packaging seems to be using the words “all natural” to describe ingredients. This is meant to be an improvement over the previous “completely artificial” ingredients that have been used for decades. However, as some point out, the use of natural ingredients doesn’t necessarily mean what consumers might think it means. Starbucks found out that “natural” might not satisfy all of its customers when it switched from Red #40 to a natural food coloring made from crushed insects. Those crushed insects aren’t harmful, but that’s not exactly what folks were expecting from a “natural” ingredient, either.
- Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (both owned by Yum Brands) have announced plans to get rid of artificial colors and flavors from their menu items. As an example, Taco Bell said it’s going to stop using artificial black pepper flavor and use “natural black pepper flavor” — but the company wouldn’t disclose the exact difference between those ingredients. [url]
- Chipotle said it has gone GMO free (well, except for its drinks). The media coverage wasn’t as glowingly positive as might have been expected, though. [url]
- Some food alarmists have been warning people that artificial strawberry and raspberry flavorings come from “beaver anal glands” — but that’s not exactly true. Castoreum is an extract from a beaver’s organ located near — but not from — a beaver’s butt, and this natural flavoring/fragrance isn’t widely used in foods because it’s actually too expensive to be economical in many food products. [url]
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Filed Under: artificial, castoreum, coloring, flavoring, food, fragrance, gmo, natural, taste
Companies: chipotle, pizza hut, starbucks, taco bell, yum brands
Comments on “DailyDirt: All Natural Doesn't Necessarily Mean Good For You…”
“Some food alarmists have been warning people that artificial strawberry and raspberry flavorings come from ‘beaver anal glands'”
Whole new meaning to “eating beaver”…
this link talks about how flavor chemicals made from yeast are “Natural”
http://boingboing.net/2015/05/20/fake-grape-and-vanilla-burping.html
it’s actually kinda interesting.
All natural!
Most deadly poisons are “all natural”, so yes, I’d say something being “natural” has absolutely nothing to do with how good it is for you.
Castoreum
Castoreum = Beaver taint.
I can’t believe I’ve been eating beaver butt!
"natural black pepper flavor"?
Me, I want to know what the difference is between “natural black pepper flavor” and “natural black pepper”. Or even just “black pepper”.
Re: "natural black pepper flavor"?
Me, I want to know what the difference is between “natural black pepper flavor” and “natural black pepper”. Or even just “black pepper”.
My understanding is that “natural X flavor” means a chemical extracted from the plant, perhaps piperine in the case of black pepper, and “artificial X flavor” could be the exact same chemical but produced artificially by some means (no idea how) rather than extracted from the plant. I think in the UK they are or used to be referred to as “natural” and “nature-identical”. I don’t know if there’s some specific requirement for the entire peppercorn to be included for the ingredient to be called “black pepper”.
Re: "natural black pepper flavor"?
Black pepper means that black pepper was used. “Natural black pepper” means mostly the same thing (in the US, “natural” on food labels has a greatly ambiguous meaning and its presence in describing food or ingredients should be ignored). “black pepper flavor” means a flavor that tastes like, but isn’t, black pepper.
Stereoisomers
There is a little appreciated point about this debate: many chemicals in food have what chemists call stereoisomers. They have the same chemical components but in 3-d the structures are either left or right handed. This handedness may or may not be important; Thalidomide is a drug where one stereoisomer causes birth defects and the other is a useful drug. However this does not necessarily have anything to do with artificial or natural.
That brown stuff that comes from my anal sphincter is natural and organic. Bonn Appetite.
“All Natural Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Good For You…”
Artificial doesn’t necessarily mean bad for you…
If it exists in nature...
If it exists in nature, then it must be natural. Naturally, therefor, shit is 100% natural. Do I want it in my food? It depends. Bees shit honey (I think)… Dog poo? No thanks!
Re: If it exists in nature...
“Bees shit honey (I think)”
Close, but wrong end. Bees vomit honey.
As far as the “natural == good” mistake, my go-to example is the fact that arsenic is completely natural.