My friend called me out on 'natural flavors' and I can't unsee it now...

So I was buying this fancy kombucha last week, the kind with 'all natural flavors' right on the front label. I was telling my friend how healthy it was, and she just pointed at the back and said, 'Read the ingredients... that 'natural strawberry flavor' is probably just a lab chemical from a fungus or something.' I looked it up, and she was right. 'Natural flavor' can mean anything from real fruit to stuff made in a factory, as long as the original source was once a plant or animal. The label makes it sound pure, but it's a total trick. I changed how I shop because of that one comment. Now I ignore the front and only check the actual ingredient list on the back. If it just says 'natural flavors' without saying what it is, I put it back. Has anyone else found a food where the 'natural flavor' is hiding something weird?

3 comments

3 Comments

paigep203d agoMost Upvoted

But isn't the processing what actually makes it safe to eat?

the_jenny14d ago

Oh man, this is such a good point, but I gotta push back a tiny bit on the "total trick" idea. The rule is that "natural flavor" has to come from a plant or animal source originally, like you said. So that strawberry flavor might start as something from a fungus or bark, but it's not a synthetic chemical made from petroleum. It's still processed a ton, for sure. The real trick is that "natural" sounds so much better than "artificial," even though the final product can be almost the same in a lab. I still check the back too, because I want to know if my "natural lemon flavor" is actually from a lemon or from, like, a specific mold.

graygonzalez14d ago

Right? It's wild how that works. I saw "natural vanilla flavor" on something last week and it was from a wood pulp process, not a bean. So @the_jenny is totally on point about the trick being in the word itself. It makes you feel better buying it, even if the end result is a lab-made copy of the real thing. I get why they do it, but it feels sneaky. Makes me wonder what my "natural beef flavor" is really from sometimes.