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What Food Brands Want You To Think About ‘Natural Flavor’ Labels

January 08, 2024 | Source: Chowhound | by Elias Nash

Hopefully, you’re in the habit of reading the ingredient labels on your food. Unfortunately, doing so can sometimes raise more questions than answers. Government regulations regarding food labels can be frustratingly vague, and few terms are subject to more confusion and misleading information than “natural flavors.” These words carry great weight in a day and age when artificial ingredients have given rise to myriad concerns about health and environmental impact, but they don’t mean what you probably think they do.

According to a 2017 report published in the Food and Drug Law Journal, “natural flavors” rank as the fourth-most common ingredient on food labels, yet hardly anyone actually knows what the term means due to extremely vague regulations. The FDA defines “natural flavor” as being “derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.” That’s an extremely broad definition, and it leaves food manufacturers with a lot of wiggle room for deceptive marketing tactics.