PREVIEW: what hides behind the vague, ambiguous ingredient "Natural Flavors" and how it can impact our health

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Let’s be real, by definition, “natural” means something NOT made or caused by humans; it means something is unaffected, spontaneous, inherent in nature. Literally anything NOT artificial, manufactured, or processed…

So ofcourse you see “Natural Flavors” listed as an ingredient and start to imagine something similar to freshly picked berries, juice squeezed from lemons, ripe tomatoes off the vine, vanilla beans scraped right off the pod, or any other straight-from-the-source ingredient.

Who could blame you for using so much common sense? NOBODY — which is exactly why “Natural” Flavors” are one of the best kept secrets in almost every packaged food we bring home, and it’s making the industry of flavor billions of dollars).

First of all — what is “flavor”?

Everything is a chemical: air, water, our body. And the flavors we taste in our food are no exception. Every flavor we taste is just a unique combination of chemicals. Different combos make different flavors like sour, sweet, salty, bitter, unami. It’s why an apple doesn’t taste like an orange and steak doesn’t taste like chicken. Different combos is what makes every food taste unique.

And the same chemicals that give food flavor are the same chemicals our body recognizes as nutrients! Yall this means FOOD HAS FLAVOR FOR A REASON & FLAVOR SERVES A PURPOSE: we’re wired to associate flavor with nutrition, to taste the flavor of a food and recognize the nutrients it has inside, to use flavor as a cue that helps our body know what’s nutritious and what’s not! Naturally, we’re not naturally designed to be picky eaters or dislike the taste of real food… we’re designed to want it. We’re designed to love and crave the foods that give our body the nutrients it needs to function. It’s why freshly picked and prepared food tastes so vibrant and amazing! Think about the flavor of a fresh carrot versus canned carrots, or a drive thru burger versus a steak right off the stove… the freshest flavor is like a message to our brain that screams, “eat me!”

So… what happens when we “create” flavor?

We’re adding Artificial & Natural Flavor to “food.”

Have you noticed Artificial Flavor or “Natural” Flavors listed as an ingredient? They’re on hundreds of packaged foods no matter where you shop whether it’s Food Lion, Martins, Safeway, Weis, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Sprouts, Moms, online, or your local market. These are how companies create crazy flavors like peep pepsi or biscuit & gravy potato chips — but more importantly, how they get fake food to taste like real food without actually using real food.

It’s how you get strawberry yogurt to taste like strawberries without using strawberries.
Veggie straws without the veggies.
Butter popcorn without the butter.
Jalapeno kettle chips without the jalapeno.
Hazelnut creamer without the hazelnut.
Coffee ice cream without the coffee.

And there’s multiple ways to make the flavor happen.

The (only) difference between Artificial and Natural Flavors.

Unlike perfumes, “flavorists” get paid big bucks to recreate the flavor of real food, mimicking our sense of taste or smell as accurately as possible.¹ ² ³ ⁴

Legally they can create Artificial or Natural Flavors from:

plants (leaves, roots, bark, herbs, fruits, veggies)
animals (any part of meat, poultry, dairy, seafood)
anything that is produced by roasting, heating, fermenting, or modifying a plant or animal's essential oils, resin, or extract
anything that is "generally regarded as safe" which is a ridiculous loophole I highly recommend you put absolutely no faith in

And the companies who hire these flavorists know shoppers like you and me are opting for “Natural” products as much as we personally can… companies know we assume “Natural” flavors are a harmless, healthier option than anything “Artificial.” So if you’ve noticed, companies choose to use Natural Flavors more often than Artificial Flavors (especially in “health food stores” where we’re buying foods we assume are healthier) — but are Natural Flavors really better?

The only difference between Artificial and Natural Flavors is super subtle:

Artificial Flavors are chemical compounds made by REPLICATING, IMITATING, OR CLONING a flavor from NONFOOD sources that are “generally regarded as safe.”

Natural Flavors are chemical compounds DERIVED, EXTRACTED, HEATED, FERMENTED, OR MODIFIED from ANY PLANT, ANIMAL, OR BYPRODUCT “generally regarded as safe”

For example, coconut!

To get the flavor of coconut, a company can just use coconut… or they can figure out what chemicals make coconut taste like coconut, and then recreate those chemicals from either a coconut (a Natural Flavor), a food other than a coconut (a Natural Flavor), something that’s not even food (an Artificial Flavor).

Getting the flavor of coconut “from coconut” sounds healthier — but is it that simple?

How all flavors are made.

Flavors are obviously only a fraction of the real thing since they’re not just throwing the real thing in. So how do they extract it?

First, flavorists manipulate the real thing’s chemical structure until it’s the smallest fraction of the single best tasting part…
Then, they’ll add a variety of other “incidental additives” like sodium benzoate, propylene glycol, polysorbate 80, potassium sorbate, glycerin, BHT, or BHA. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-101/subpart-B/section-101.22

All so that their final flavor is:

blended evenly
blends into other ingredients evenly
shelf-stable in packaged foods
tastes the same way every single time

Why aren’t all these extras listed on a label? Because Flavors are considered proprietary trade secret recipes to prevent competitors from making copycats, and kept secret from the public unless brought to court.

So a company could use the real ingredient to get the flavor they want… but why pay to travel, harvest, and continuously tweak a recipe until it’s palatable ($$$$) if you can just pay a flavorist for a flavor you can easily throw into production! Sourcing the real ingredient may be unsustainable too (we’d wipe out a world supply of some foods at the rate we’d use it for products).

But how is the convenience of fake flavor sabotaging our health?

Adding (any) flavor is not natural.

In a nutshell, the problem is that neither Artificial or Natural Flavors are the actual food they’re trying to mimic. Neither of them are the real thing.

But these flavors are also classified excitotoxins — meaning the flavor literally overstimulates our brain cells to death. https://www.american.edu/cas/health/nutrneurolab/ https://healthychild.com/excitotoxins-and-neurodevelopment/ https://archive.org/details/excitotoxinstast0000blay

And it all raises a couple raging red flags.

Abnormal “food”
Most obviously: flavors make us eat foods we normally wouldn’t; flavors exist because we have 30,000+ items in a single grocery store, most being so processed that the final product ends up tasting like cardboard — if it weren’t for the flavor, you likely wouldn’t think it’s so great.
Excitotoxin: picky eaters
Which leads us to our next point: fake flavors taste too great — the fake flavors are raising the bar so high that real food can’t compete and we no longer think real food tastes good enough, contributing to an epidemic of picky eaters.
Excitotoxin: cravings
Our brain is basically getting a little bump of the best flavor it’s ever had, creating a vicious cycle a lot like addiction: overstimulated neurons release dopaminehttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-022-00669-3 , and when the stimulation is gone, we crave the feel-good rush again — the more Natural Flavors we eat, the more our brain craves another rush of excitement, making you more & more desperate for Flavored “foods” like soda, chips, or granola bars that actually have very little of or zero nutrients we need, becoming a hard habit to break.

one of many different kinds on the market

It’s tricking our brain to crave food that doesn’t actually contain the nutrients our brain thinks it’s getting. trick consumers into thinking they are getting nutrition that isn’t there

Creating picky eaters in both children and adults

Are Artificial and Natural flavorings the only reason we binge a whole bag of chips or ice cream? No — sugar, stress, poor planning, and is commonly given credit for binging a whole pint of ice cream of bag of chips… we think a big missing piece of the conversation are these flavorings being used to mimic the real thing —

destroying taste preference for real food/we prefer fake food
creating abnormal cravings
ruining out gut
killing brain cells/excitoxin

make extremely processed foods more enticing, or even addictive. They can make the flavor of a substance many times more potent than it naturally would be

Consider the consequences

GRAS is allowing thousands of ingredients to be used as flavors, and a single food we eat can contain hundreds of different substances.

Natural Flavors have no nutritional benefit

and account for 1% of any given product,

but they also make “foods” way more enticing, addictive, and potent than it naturally would be. may encourage you to overeat unhealthy or processed foods that have been modified to become addictive.

I don’t want to screw up the signals in my body that allow me to crave something because it has the nutrients I need.

don’t want to eat foods that trick my tastebuds into downing almost a whole box in one sitting

know exactly what I’m eating, and with “natural flavors” I’m left in the dark

can be used to make healthy foods or strong tasting nutrients more palatable to encourage consumption

leaving behind all the good stuff that makes the real thing healthy

Even if you’re healthy and feel good, we should all be aware of these excitatory synthetic additives and excess free-glutamates in our food.

We always tell clients to consider prioritizing Artificial Flavors, Natural Flavors, Spices, and other excitoxins especially if you’re dealing with

cravings
allergies https://www.cspinet.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/CSPI_FlavorReport2024_FINAL.pdf
neurological symptoms (think: headaches, migraines, brain fog, ADHD, autism, Parkinson's, dementia, Alzheimers, etc)

Some of us may be really allergic to what’s in these flavors. https://www.cspinet.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/CSPI_FlavorReport2024_FINAL.pdf

Some of us may just be really sensitive and develop severe symptoms.

Some of us may see subtle side effects that develop over a long period of time.

Healing

The solution is always the same: eat fresh whole foods. The consequences of added flavor

Next, minimize natural flavors is you are going to buy packaged foods. Print and carry our Main 5 Ingredients to Minimize guide with you to the grocery store!

Simply: just eat whole foods. Flavo

Daily basics: make sure you’re eating whole foods & supporting natural detox pathways, water to flush/solvent,

If you are experiencing symptoms like these, you may need to avoid foods naturally foods that are naturally high in glutamate for a time during the healing phase. The introduction of synthetic flavor enhancers into the American diet have caused many health issues which result in people having to avoid even healthy whole foods with higher levels of glutamate for a time until they heal. High glutamate foods include:

Bone broth simmered several hours
Broccoli
Probiotics
Grapes
Walnuts

PS — we agree using the real thing for flavor can be unsustainable (we’d wipe out a world supply of some foods at the rate we’d use it in packaged foods), but we’d argue the solution to that is not creating flavor in a lab just to create more fake foods, when instead you can simply just make meals made with whole foods and grow as much as you can at home.

Questions? Always rooting for you and honored to help or point you to someone else who can.