More than any other holiday, Thanksgiving celebrates food. But this year, with over 42% of Americans suffering from obesity, many consumers are taking a closer look at what they are eating. Some may be surprised to learn that many dishes on the holiday table—the cranberry relish, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, the mushroom green bean casserole, the pumpkin pie, the corn bread, even the turkey!— all share a common ingredient: natural flavor.
It’s not just Thanksgiving, of course. Today, roughly a third of packaged food labels list “natural flavor” as an ingredient, even though the term is widely misunderstood by consumers. Until recently, the confusion did not seem to matter much to public health. But as increasing evidence links eating so-called “ultra-processed foods” to obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases, ingredients like “natural flavors” are getting a closer look.
Federal regulations define “natural flavor” as an ingredient used to “impart flavor,” which is derived from plant or animal material. However, deriving a substance from a plant or animal, while arguably less artificial than creating one whole cloth in a lab, does not make the substance very “natural,” at least not in most consumers’ eyes.
For one, a “natural” flavor source need not bear any relationship to the flavor it imparts. Consider that clove oil and tree bark provide much of the “natural” vanilla flavor consumed today. Vanilla flavor can also come from castoreum, a chemical compound beavers release to mark their territory. Or consider that wheat and milk are the main ingredients in McDonald’s “natural beef flavor.”
“Natural flavors” are also allowed to include synthetic chemicals, so long as their “function” is not “to impart flavor.” In fact, “natural flavor” compounds may contain more synthetic chemicals than “artificial flavors” because extracting flavor substances from a plant or animal source is often more complicated, and requires more solvents and other processing aids, than chemically synthesizing it. This complexity also makes natural flavors more expensive to produce, but food manufacturers are able to pass along the costs to consumers. At least for now, consumer will pay more for a food made with “natural flavors,” because they believe it is healthier than one with “artificial flavors.”
The truth, however, is that whether a food contains “artificial flavors” or “natural flavors” seems to matter less than whether it contains any added flavors at all. That’s because research increasingly suggests that added flavors may play an important role in explaining the association between our obesity epidemic and ultra-processed foods, which now make up over two-thirds of the calories in American kids’ diets.
By making these foods hyperpalatable, according to one theory, added flavors hijack the brain’s reward circuitry and generate cravings that overcome normal satiety cues. Alternatively, added flavors may cause overeating by disrupting “flavor-nutrient learning,” the process by which we come to associate foods with their nutritional content.
As with so much in nutrition science, the precise effect of “natural flavors” on America’s obesity epidemic will take time to tease out. However, as recognition grows that ultra-processed foods are a potentially important contributor to our dietary dysfunction, allowing some ultra-processed food ingredients to masquerade as “natural” creates an unwarranted illusion of wholesomeness.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, whose regulations gave us “natural flavors,” might consider a rebranding for this ubiquitous ingredient. Changing the name “natural flavors” to something more neutral, like “added flavors,” could have the added benefit of starting conversations about what ‘natural’ really means in food. Already, arguments about food are a mainstay of Thanksgiving. This holiday, many families may argue about whether ingredients like “natural flavors” are enhancing our health and enjoyment, or alternatively, masking a deeper issue in our food system. It’s an important conversation to have, one to be thankful for.