The other day, in a local supermarket, I was standing in the dairy aisle, looking for my usual brand of sour cream. It was clean sold out, so I was checking out different brands. To my utter surprise one of the tubs said “Natural flavor added”. You know me by now: I was not only flabbergasted, I was clean disgusted. Why would you need to add natural flavor to a natural product? Unless the product is so bad and bland that you wouldn’t want it in the first place?
I have no idea how many naturally flavored products I have eaten in my lifetime. After all, one of the leading manufacturers of natural flavors is near Heidelberg, an hour’s drive away from my hometown in Germany. I’ve never really come to terms with wood chips pretending to be strawberries or mold creating flavors such as peach, nut, or coconut. The older I become the less I think it makes sense, especially since a lot of those flavored products don’t taste anywhere near the original flavor experience. And I’m never sure what chemistry I ingest with it. Well, I guess, a lot of the fruity flavors go into candy – that in itself is not health food, right? But do I have to have strawberry-flavored apple juice? Or fake fruit in a yogurt, flavored and dyed to assume the experience you have when eating a strawberry or a blueberry?
Ah, here goes my next favorite topic: food dyes. And I’m pretty sure I never ran into that amount of it in Germany. One thing that really struck me from the first over here was blue icing. I have a feeling there is an extra high rate of blue icing sales here in Washington State. For one, we have the Seahawks (with an additional shade of green to the cake). And as a retired Air Force spouse I’ve had my share of tongue-coloring blue-iced dessert cakes as well. There are rainbow cake batters and colored sprinkles, and not just kids fall for it. Of course, they do! It’s the older generations that pack all the dyes into kids’ food to make it appear more edible. With the effect that natural produce like vegetable or fruit are less appreciated than colorful cupcakes or candy. I’m not sure we are doing them a favor. Lately I leafed through a recipe book of mine and came across a recipe for deep-frying batter. It called for yellow food dye. Why?!
And then there are fragrances. Scented candles, scented oils, scented potpourris, scented you name-its – you don’t even know what’s in them. Yes, we do have them in Germany, too. I never was one for them. I love the elegance of white taper candles. I don’t want additional smell. My home is filled with the fragrance of cooking and baking. Right now, the tart scent of apples from our neighbors’ garden adds to the mix, along with the smell of rotting leaves when I open the doors or windows. It’s a lovely, entirely seasonal fragrance. I have a feeling you could tell what season it is by just walking into our home and sniffing – without having fake sea scents (I wonder whether it were bought if it really smelled of rotting pilings, algae, and wet sand), pumpkin latte or Christmas cookie aromas. Why would I want to mix the delicious smell of a pot roast with the artificial fragrance of “rain”, which actually tends to remind me of laundry freshly removed from the washing machine?!
What makes us crave for the artificial when we can have the natural original? It seems to be a human phenomenon. The other day I bought stamps from one of our local post offices. They show those popsicles in incredible color combinations. I wouldn’t even want to eat a single one of those if the were for real. I am sure they’d taste as artificial as they look. And – would you believe it?! – when you rub those stamps, they smell!
Joan Campion says
You are so right Susanne. Those of us who grew up knowing, eating, smelling, and cooking real food know the difference. We ate what was natural, in season and canned varieties when out of season or did without.
Because of convenience, lack time or preference many today don’t know what real food or drink tastes or smells like. The wonderful aromas (for some not so wonderful aromas), that emanate from the kitchen.
When my husband was going to the heart clinic the well versed and knowledgeable nurse in her field kept telling me to use DASH in his food. I couldn’t get through to her I didn’t need that stuff. I used real ingredients like onions, garlic, and herbs for flavor. NO SALT real or otherwise. I always cooked from scratch and with 5 children, 4 of them boys, meals were hearty. No food out of a box. Granted many today don’t have the luxury of time for that. But it’s still sad that so many only know restaurant food or quickly thrown together fare off the shelf or out of the deli.
There’s a solution for natural smells in the home. It’s called, opening the windows, even for a few minutes a day. I love the smell of the soil and breathe deeply of it. Growing up in NYC there wasn’t much opportunity for that other than a park. My rapture was once cooled when my science educated cousin and brother said that was the smell of it being broken down and rotting. Oh well, I still love it.
And we wonder why citizens in the US are among the unhealthiest in the developed world. Happy Eating!
Susanne Bacon says
Thank you for your encouraging words, dear Joan. My doctor always wonders how much longer I can hold these perfect blood values … I guess, a healthy diet (I’m cooking from scratch) is part of the secret. As to smell – broken down and rotting plants are not that bad unless they are in a composter … The combination of rain on asphalt, rotting leaves and rotting fruit combined with a whiff of wind – I can’t imagine anything more fall than that …
Susan says
I was appalled when I read the list of top ten cleaning products and number four was “air sprays” such as Fabreeze and/or Glade products. Really people smell coverups are not cleaning products!!
Susanne Bacon says
Indeed you never know what you breathe in anyhow. So why add to it, right?
P Rose says
Consider that foods now can be entertainment that involves escapism from the usual and customary. People watch movies in increasing numbers just to get away and feel something different. Boredom is rampant in our modern culture, and begs for outside stimulation, ergo fun food.
Susanne Bacon says
With all the entertainment that our nation gets and with all the variety is out there, I wonder what we need to escape from and where the boredom comes from. There is so much to explore especially with the means of our modern culture that I don’t get why we need to place the artificial before the natural.
Steve says
What is even the point of this post? An old person angry at the world changing around them? You talk about “What makes us crave for the artificial when we can have the natural original?” yet these are natural flavors you’re writing about, not artificial ones.
Maybe you just have a narrow mind, or a poor understanding of the culinary arts, like the commenter above who doesn’t cook with salt, lol.
Susanne Bacon says
I am not old, Steve. I just don’t see why I should take mold or wood (yes, parts of nature!) as natural flavors as in “nut” or “strawberry”. I just love what nature has to offer per se instead of artificially creating what then is called “natural”. I am certainly not an angry person; I just see all the damage we do to ourselves with flavoring, dying, fragrancing things away from what is their natural given. Your assumptions about me are just sad.