More Strange Ingredients In Foods

Last year I talked about Natural Flavors and Other Strange Ingredients in a post.  At that time, I talked about an "All Natural" Snapple fruit drink, because it's what I happened to have at the time.  I wasn't trying to pick on Snapple, their drinks are comparatively healthy in relation to many of the processed foods on the market, just making my point about ingredients and their regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA: Protecting corporations from consumers since 1906!

Just to show how many strange ingredients a processed food item can have, this time I'm going to show you the ingredients in a Don Miguel brand burrito, The Bomb, Green Chile flavor.  Now I'm not pretending to be a health nut or anything.  I like junk food in moderation, and I really like these burritos, which are available at my local Quick Trip convenience store, especially the Green Chile ones.  They're mildy spicy to give you that Tex-Mex flavor without being too hot.  And The Bomb is a nice, big 14 ounce burrito that will fill you up--I usually eat half and save the other half for later.  And now for the ingredients. They're separated into the beef, bean, and green chile filling, cheese sauce, and the tortilla. 

The Bomb is the bomb! Eating one of these will make you explode.

Don Miguel brand

The Bomb - beef, cheese sauce & bean with green chiles burrito

Ingredients:

Beef and Bean with Green Chiles fill:
-Beef,
-Water,
-Beans,
-Green Chiles,
-Modified Food Starch.

Contains 2% or less of:
-Vinegar,
-Flavorings,
-Tomatoes (Tomatoes, Tomato Puree, Citric Acid),
-Oats,
-Salt,
-Dehydrated Onion,
-Hydrolyzed Corn Gluten,
-Soy Protein,
-Wheat Gluten,
-Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil,
-Jalapenos (Jalapeno Peppers, Salt, Acetic Acid, Water, Calcium Chloride),
-Guar Gum,
-Cilantro Flavor (Dextrose, Modified Corn Starch, Extractives of Cilantro),
-Soy Lecithin,
-Sugar,
-Grill Flavor (Maltodextrin, Salt, Defatted Wheat Germ, Natural Flavor, Corn Syrup Solids, Modified Food Starch, Tricalcium Phosphate).


Cheese Sauce:
-Water,
-Pasteurized Blended Cheddar Cheese (Milk, Culture, Salt, Sodium Citrate, Enzymes, Apocarotenal (color)),
-Dehydrated Cheese Powder
--(Corn Syrup,
--American Cheese (Milk, Culture, Salt, Enzymes),
--Food Starch Modified,
--Whey,
--Partially Hydrogenated Coconut and/or Soybean Oil,
--Salt,
--Butter (Milk Fat),
--Nonfat Milk,
--Buttermilk,
--Di-Sodium Phosphate,
--Sodium Caseinate,
--Mono and Di-Glycerides,
--Citric Acid,
--Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate,
--Sodium Citrate,
--Di-Potassium Phosphate,
--Natural Flavor,
--Natural and Artificial Colors (Annatto, Paprika, FD&C Yellow #5, FD&C Yellow #6, Beta Carotene),
--and Carrageenan),
-Modified Food Starch. 

Contains 2% or less of:
-Vinegar,
-Dehydrated Onion.

Tortilla:
-Bleached Wheat Flour Enriched (Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid),
-Water,
-Soybean Oil,
-Vital Wheat Gluten,
-Salt,
-Dough Conditioner (Inverted Sugar, Propylene Glycol, Water, Cellulose Gum),
-Baking Powder (Corn Starch, Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate),
-Emulsifier (Guar Gum, Mono-Diglycerides, Rice Flour),
-Guar Gum,
-Sodium Metabisulfite.



As you can see, it's stuffed full of strange-sounding ingredients: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Guar Gum, Propylene Glycol, Hydrolyzed Corn Gluten, and other wonderful things.  I could go to the trouble of explaining the various ingredients, but there's so many here that it would take a lot of space.  Instead, as before, I recommend a Google and/or Wikipedia search for any of the listed ingredients--it's easy enough with the internet to discover why any of the less obvious ingredients are in there.  And if it bothers you, don't eat them.  But I like these things.

Natural Flavors and Other Strange Ingredients

Somehow, I happened to have a Snapple juice drink, and noticed that it says that it is "All Natural".  The Snapple slogan is "Made from the Best Stuff on Earth."  This one is the "Naturally Flavored" Snapple Apple flavor.   But what does it really mean to be "naturally flavored"?

First, it really does taste--and smell--like a fresh apple, and not so much like apple cider or something.  Food manufacturers are well aware how much our sense of smell affects our taste of foods.

Second, let's look at the ingredients.   It contains Filtered Water, Sugar, Apple and Pear Juice Concentrate, Citric Acid, Vegetable and Fruit Juice (for color), and Natural Flavors.  The label says that it contains 10% Juice, which means that it's almost 90% water and sugar!  The Best Stuff on Earth, indeed.  While it doesn't specifically say cane sugar, that would be a good guess, because it doesn't specifically say fructose, dextrose, or High Fructose Corn Syrup, the latter being a common ingredient in soda pop and other cheaper juice drinks.  All Natural it may be, but that doesn't make it all that healthy as a drink.

And vegetable juice for color?  Which vegetable or vegetables?  It doesn't specify.  Yum--shades of V8!  Citric acid, on the other hand, is no big deal.  It's an acid, yes, but it's a weak acid, and commonly used as a preservative and to give a bit of a kick to the flavor of foods.  In my home cooking, I've discovered that vinegar, another weak acid, also provides a tangy taste to foods.

The real kicker on the ingredients list is "natural flavors".  Since it sounds okay, you probably don't even think twice about it.  But the list has already mentioned apple and pear juice concentrate, citric acid, and some unspecified vegetable and fruit juices for color.  What OTHER natural flavor could they possibly be adding to this juice drink?

Well, according to Wikipedia, the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations describes a "natural flavorant" as:

the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or any other edible portions of a plant, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose primary function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.

So Snapple could be adding just about anything derived from natural sources, including meats, eggs, or dairy products.  We simply don't know based on the term "natural flavors".  The only way to be sure would be to contact Snapple and ask them what specifically was added, as the FDA regulations don't require such specific information on the label.

And you thought that the FDA was here to protect the consumer?  Well, that may be their alleged purpose, but given a label like "natural flavors", one has to wonder how protective of consumers the FDA and the government really are.

Now admittedly, no food manufacturer is out to deliberately harm or kill their consumers--anybody who thinks so has got to be a real conspiracy nut.  Harming your customers is bad for business.  However, that doesn't rule out unintentional harm to consumers, or even just simple misleading information.  Suppose one of those natural flavors was from a meat or poultry source, and you're trying to be a good vegetarian, for example?  Or it might truly be something harmless, but which would seem terrible to your average consumer.  Castoreum, for example, is one natural flavoring that is extracted from the dried glands and secretions of a beaver’s rear end.  Sounds disgusting, doesn't it?  But it really is harmless, and adds certain flavors to foods and drinks.

Now I'm not trying to pick on Snapple--one of their products just happened to be on hand--most food manufacturers use natural flavors and a variety of other strange-sounding ingredients to improve the shelf-life, longevity, color, texture, and taste of their foods, because they know consumers won't drink an apple juice that doesn't smell or taste like apples, or eat a fruit pie that has an unappetizing-looking, strangely-colored amorphous blob for fruit.

Still, if you really want to know what you're consuming, you can't trust the FDA to protect you.  Check the label for the ingredients and if you find something you don't recognize, look it up on the internet.  If it really bothers you, contact the company, or else just don't buy that product!  If nobody buys it, the manufacturer will change it or stop selling it.   It's really that simple.

One other thing I've noticed on the Snapple bottle is a K in a circle, with the words Kosher Pareve next to it.  This is apparently a private certfication symbol of the Organized Kashrut Laboratories signifying that the product is neither meat nor dairy, nor prepared with either meat or dairy products.  That is, it's kosher, and meets certain Jewish dietary requirements.  Thus, I think we can assume that the natural flavorings in my Snapple Apple are not from any meat or dairy source.  Imagine that--private certfication.  What a concept!  Exactly why do we need the FDA? More importantly, how can we trust the FDA to do the job right?

an extraction of the dried glands and secretions from a beaver’s rear end - See more at: http://foodidentitytheft.com/%E2%80%9Cnatural%E2%80%9D-can-run-the-gamut-from-bugs-to-beaver-butts/#sthash.wJwfov6F.dpuf

an extraction of the dried glands and secretions from a beaver’s rear end - See more at: http://foodidentitytheft.com/%E2%80%9Cnatural%E2%80%9D-can-run-the-gamut-from-bugs-to-beaver-butts/#sthash.wJwfov6F.dpuf