Of course you’ve seen the labels that tell you your snacks have “natural and artificial flavors”. What’s the difference? Is one better or worse for you than the other?
As more Americans become conscious of their food choices, producers are responding. They aren’t necessarily trying to make things more natural or healthy, but they are trying to limit themselves to ingredients that people “see as natural”.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is an environmental organization that researches, among many other things, issues around toxic chemicals. They studied natural and artificial flavors and concluded there isn’t really that much difference. In fact, the biggest difference wasn’t their health effects but how they are sourced and regulated. Natural flavors must come from plant or animal material (currently including GMO crops), while artificial flavors are synthesized entirely from other ingredients… petroleum, for example.
The artificial flavors end up being very close to the chemical composition of their natural targets, because taste is a chemical phenomenon. Two flavors that are radically different chemically won’t taste the same at all. Creating an artificial flavor may use the same basic chemicals, but would put them together from easier or cheaper sources rather than pulling the real flavor as-is from the natural source.
Natural flavors have other chemicals that don’t contribute to the main thrust of the flavor, but add slightly different overtones. Artificial grape flavor might have the same base components as natural grape flavor, but the natural flavor will be more complex and more textured.
Because the differences are so small in this case, EWG rates natural and artificial flavors the same in its Food Scores database. There is a slightly better score for “organic natural” flavors, which is basically the flavor of the food itself. Duh.
If you want to avoid added flavorings, natural or artificial, the only solution is to eat unprocessed foods. Food from your garden or organic food from the store both come with all the flavors they’re supposed to have, and with all the nutrition as well.
Digging Deeper…
Synthetic ingredients in Natural Flavors and Natural Flavors in Artificial flavors by David Andrews, Environmental Working Group.
The Flavor Industry by Samia McCully, N.D., on PCC Cooks, Aug 2010
What is the difference between artificial and natural flavors? Gary Reineccius in Scientific American, Jul 2002
Do you know the difference between artificial and natural flavors in food? Katherine Martinko on TreeHugger, Nov 2014
