What does "natural flavors" mean to you, when it is listed as an ingredient?!
Answers: Essence of Poison Ivy. Blow Fish extract. Snake oil.
Natural flavors can mean anything. Go to wikipdia and type "Flavor" into their search engine. "Natural Flavor" is defined very broadly.
well technically, everything is "natural" because the stuff made in labs originally came from natural things. everything comes from natural things, really. but i think either they are lazy and/or hiding something maybe. i mean, why not just list what they are if they are "natural"? it is almost hypocritical or ironic or something i dont know. i dont like it lol
To me it means they were too lazy to list what the actual ingredients were...or they don't have standard recipe and they just toss random crap in the mix.
Laboratory simulated flavor. There is no necessity to put that label if it was really natural. If it was natural, it would've been labelled 'organic'.
It means they have removed all that was natural, and then had to add back in something to make it taste like food again. :p
My motto with food is, whenever possible, eat whole foods. No boxes. No cans. No bags or packages. Real food with real flavor. If the flavor has to be added back in, it's not real food.
It means it is derived from a natural source, not imitation. For instance vanilla extract comes in an imitation form (clear) and a natural form (brown). The imitation is a various combination of flavors that give a similar taste to natural vanilla. The benefit of artificial with this product is it's cheaper than natural vanilla, and it won't turn a white frosting to a cream color... the downfall, the flavor is not a true vanilla, but instead vanilla like.
Supposedly it means the flavor came from a natural source: For example, natural vanilla comes from a vanilla bean, artificial vanilla comes from a chemical plant. This is not necessarily that big of a problem, as many flavors are simple esters and related compounds that are relatively easy to synthesize from redily available industrial feedstocks.
For example the active flavor components in artificial vanilla are :3-methoxy-4-hydroxy benzaldehyde and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzoic acid. This the same stuff that's in natural vanilla!
Artificial oil of wintergreen is methyl salicylate; it is the same compound as the natural material!
If you're looking for something to be concerned about, it's artificial COLORS! If you go down the aisle of sports drinks etc and see all the bright, flourescent colors, you can be pretty certian there is no way they are same chemical structure as any natural colors!
That's how they list the .75 grams of cockroach exoskeletons and .0045 oz of rat hairs/mouse poo that get into your processed food.
Hey, it IS natural!