Natural flavors: the not-so-natural additive

When I started my health journey and began actually paying attention to foods’ ingredient labels, I would always gloss over that ever-so-present ingredient “natural flavors.” I quickly tossed aside products with “artificial flavors,” but I figured the natural ones had to be safe. Unfortunately, I’ve since learned that natural flavors are about as far from “natural” as you can get.

What is natural flavor?

Any flavor ingredient, natural or artificial is added to food to enhance dull or hidden flavors, often a reality of processed food. It is the food ingredient equivalent of “fragrance” in personal care products. Flavors are also intentionally designed to make processed food more addictive, with finite flavor notes leaving the consumer nearly unable to say no to more. Two flavorists (yes, this is a real job) discuss the reality of cultivating food addiction in a fascinating 60 Minutes episode.

The FDA defines natural flavors as any ingredient derived from a plant or animal source whose function is flavoring, not nutrition (you can read the full definition here). Basically, as long as the original source of the flavor is not a mineral or petrochemical, it can be labeled as a natural flavor (source). That’s a pretty broad definition, and it is expanded even further by the fact there are little to no regulations on how the flavors are actually extracted from the original source (source). This means that they typically end up containing both artificial and synthetic chemicals from the chemicals used to process out the flavor (source); in fact, EWG estimates that a natural flavors ingredient can contain up to 100 chemicals in addition to the original source, and that 80-90% of the mixture is synthetic (source). If you’re consuming food with the natural flavors ingredients, you could easily be eating MSG, secretions from a beaver’s anal gland, or a compound from the bladders of sturgeons (source). In fact, some argue that artificial flavors may be a safer alternative to natural flavors—they are more highly regulated, can only include ingredients from an FDA-approved list of “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) substances, and often have fewer components than natural flavors (source).

Organic natural flavors, while not perfect, are the safest of all the flavor options, as they have to be produced without artificial solvents, preservatives, etc., and are prohibited from including propylene glycol, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, mono- and di-glycerides, benzoic acid, polysorbate 80, medium chain triglycerides, BHT, BHA, triacetin (note that normal natural flavors can include all of these!) (source). Google any of these, and you’ll find that they’ve been linked to cancer, fertility problems, and a host of other health issues.

How can I avoid natural flavors?

To be honest, completely avoiding natural flavors in our society is nearly impossible. Natural flavors are the fourth most common ingredient listed on food labels today, only behind salt, water, and sugar (source, source). However, you can make practical choices that reduce your family’s exposure to this chemical-laden ingredient—remember every small reduction counts! Here are a few tips:

1. Eat real, whole foods (instead of processed ones) whenever possible
   A fresh piece of produce or meat will always be more nutritious than a processed version. You’ll avoid many harmful ingredients, including natural flavors.

2. When you do buy processed food, look for organic natural flavors
   While these aren’t perfect, they are significantly better than the alternative. You’ll at least know that many harmful chemicals are excluded from their makeup.

3. When your only option is natural vs. artificial flavors, don’t beat yourself up
   Yes, it would be great to avoid these 100% and eat a totally whole food diet, but sometimes you just need to pick up a box of brownies to take to a party. When our family does choose to consume food with flavors, we are slightly more comfortable with artificial.