So the weekend of May 14th (yes very late post) my husband and myself kept quite busy. On Saturday I went to the gym with a friend - which gave me a whopping seven hours away from the house, and away from my babies. Which I haven't had EVER, and it went over well for both parties, I had fun, and everyone at home was happy and content. Then on Sunday we spent the day in Bellevue and got some hiking shoes for Chris, and had a relaxing, people watching time.
Later that evening we headed up to Beacon Hill for a Vegan Chili Cook-off! Mmm vegan chili and bread and treats and people. It was an enjoyable time, and we were able to try most of the chilies and my FAVORITE won! Awesome!! (The vegan cupcakes were really good too MMMM MMM!!) However, what leads me to write this blog is that on the way to the vegan cook-off, the bus driver was a lovely, friendly guy, who was chatting it up with some vegans who were en route to the cook-off as well. And I am not to sure what brought the topic up...BUT they ended up talking about "natural flavouring" ad how it doesn't really have to be "natural" at all - let alone vegan or vegetarian for gods sake.
Now, my opinion on natural flavouring before overhearing this conversation and doing my own personal research was the following; natural flavouring was naturally derived flavour from whatever the main flavour or flavours were in whatever I happened to be eating and/or drinking. For example, the raspberry sorbet that contained "natural flavour" was of course a flavour, or odor, or taste made from raspberries, or apple, or pear, and/or whatever other fruit derived flavours made up the raspberry sorbet, etc..
WRONG. Here is the definition of "natural flavour" and how the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations describes "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."
And if you begin to look up individual products flavourings, (natural, artificial, and the like) you will be surprised as to what concoctions we are actually consuming. NOT to mention putting into our babies.
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