Wait, Natural Flavors Ain’t Natural?
By definition, “natural” means something NOT made or caused by humans; unaffected, spontaneous, inherent in nature — it literally means anything NOT artificial, manufactured, or processed…
So OFCOURSE you see “Natural Flavors” listed as an ingredient and start to imagine an ingredient from freshly picked berries, juice squeezed from lemons, seeds scraped right off the vanilla bean, or any other straight-off-the-farm 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 sneaking into almost every “healthy” product. We’re glancing over the word “Natural” and assuming it’s healthier than anything with “Artificial” flavors, which is making the companies & chemists who create these flavors a million dollar industry).
First of all, what is “flavor”?
The short answer: CHEMICALS — because everything is a chemical. And the flavors we taste in our food are no exception. Any flavor we taste is just a unique combination of elements, atoms, molecules, and compounds; different chemical combos have different flavors (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami) and different foods taste differently because they have different chemical combos.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, the same chemical combos that give food flavor are the same chemical combinations our body recognizes as nutrients! Yallllll, this means FOOD HAS FLAVOR FOR A REASON. FLAVOR SERVES A PURPOSE: we’re wired to associate a flavor with it’s nutrients. Flavor is the cue that tell us what foods have the nutrients we need. It’s why fresh food naturally tastes amazing — the flavor is like a chemical message to our brain that says, “you should eat me.” We’re not designed to dislike the taste of real food… we’re designed to instinctually enjoy, want, and crave the real foods that give give our body the nutrients it needs to function. Naturally, flavor plays a huge part in nutrition.
Artificial vs Natural Flavors
If you read ingredients, then you’ve seen these Artificial and Natural Flavors EVERYWHERE. Foods are made with these flavors left and right. Whether you shop at Food Lion, Martins, Whole Foods, online, or your local market… our stores are full of “foods” that taste like all kinds of things (peep flavored pepsi, sour cream and onion potato chips, biscuit and gravy potato chips, made with these flavors left and right. we’re eating foods that taste like [insert whatever food they’re trying to mimic] — but don’t actually have the nutrients of that food. For example: veggie straws, strawberry yogurt, butter popcorn, maple bacon, cheese crackers, etc) — but don’t actually have the nutrients. Meaning: they’re creating a “food” that tastes like real food — without the nutrients from real food.
And while sugar, stress, poor planning or lack of willpower 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 BOTH of these synthetic, fake flavors being used to mimic the real thing — with a lot of us thinking Natural Flavors are the better option.
destroying our taste preference for real food/prefer fake
creating abnormal cravings
ruining our gut
kiling brain cells/excitoxins
