The Food and Drug Administration defines natural flavors as substances derived from animals or plants and artificial flavors are those that are not. An artificial flavor must be comprised of one of the nearly 700 FDA-allowed flavoring chemicals or food additives categorized as “generally recognized as safe,” or any of 2000 other chemicals not directly regulated by FDA but sanctioned for use by an industry group, the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States. Most of these chemicals exist as natural flavors or can be extracted from them. It's mind boggling to try to figure it all out.
Basically, when you see the words natural flavors or natural flavoring on food labels, it means there are substances included that may or may not be the best for your health. Natural flavors is often used to hide small amounts of ingredients that food manufacturers do not necessarily want to claim in writing on the label. They may include items such as amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, ethyl butyrate, various aliphatic acid ester, ethyl acetate, ethyl valerate, ethyl isovalerate, ethyl pelargonate, vanillin, lemon essential oil, citral, citronellal, rose absolute, geraninol, orange essential oil, geranium essential oil, aldehyde C10, ethyl heptanoate, acetaldehyde, aldehydes C14 and C16, styralyl acetate, dimethyl benzyl carbinyl acetate, benzyl formate, phenyl ethyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl isovalerate, anise essential oil, esters of colophony and benzaldehyde and may contain terpenyl isovalerate, isopropyl isovalerate, citronellyl isovalerate, geranyl isovalerate, benzyl isovalerate, cinnamyl formate, isopropyl valerate, butyl valerate, methyl allyl butyrate and potentially the synthetic ingredients cyclohexyl acetate, allyl butyrate, allyl cyclohexylvalerate, allyl isovalerate and cyclohexyl butyrate. It's up to you to decide which of these are added to enhance the flavor of food and which are added to increase the addictiveness to keep you coming back for more. Whole Foods Market has a list of banned ingredients that includes over 200 items. Not all of these are included as ‘natural flavor’ but I suspect many are.
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit research organization, these mixtures can contain more than 100 different chemicals in addition to their original flavor source, including preservatives, solvents, and other substances. Food manufacturers do not have to disclose their presence of these ‘incidental additives’ on food labels. Food manufacturers can use a natural solvent such as ethanol in their flavors, but the FDA also permits them to use synthetic solvents such as propylene glycol. Flavor extracts and food ingredients that have been derived from genetically engineered crops may also be labeled “natural” because the FDA has not fully defined what the term “natural” means. For “organic foods,” the natural flavor must have been produced without synthetic solvents, carriers and artificial preservatives. This may give us a sense of better health worthiness.
The system is broken when food manufacturers can use loopholes like “natural flavors” to sneak unwanted additives into our food. Best bet is to cook real food in your kitchen and utilize your spice rack to flavor your meals. One of the biggest downsides of processed foods is the chemical additives, artificial or ‘natural’, that come along with them. One thing I often tell my clients is that if you cannot recognize an ingredient in a processed food, your body won't either. Unrecognized food additives are sent to the liver where they are stored because our bodies do not know what else to do with them.
