
What’s in ‘Flavor’? No One Knows—and That’s a Problem
March 12, 2024 | Source: Center for Science in the Public Interest | by Thomas Galligan, PhD, Adrienne Crezo
A loophole in the FDA’s process for evaluating food ingredients—paired with vague ingredient labels and lax oversight—means hardly anyone knows exactly what we’re eating. Here’s what to know about natural flavor, artificial flavor, spices, and how food and flavor manufacturers hide thousands of food chemicals from consumers and the FDA.
The problems with ‘flavor’ and ‘spices’
The way food tastes and smells is important when it comes to choosing what we eat. Food companies engineer foods to ensure they taste and smell appealing by adding flavors and spices. These can be natural substances or chemicals synthesized in a laboratory. They can be a single ingredient—like vanilla extract, dried basil, or a specific chemical—or blends of many ingredients formulated and developed by professional flavorists.
One thing all spices and flavors have in common is that food companies do not actually have to tell consumers which of these substances they have added to a food or beverage. Almost all other food ingredients must be explicitly identified by name in the ingredient list found on food packages. However, federal regulations allow the food industry to use the vague catchall terms “artificial flavor,” “natural flavor,” and “spices” instead of identifying each individual flavor substance by name.