Six Artificial Flavors Ordered Out of the Food Supply
- Michellle Jolliffe Gonzalez
- Nov 24, 2018
- 2 min read
In a dispute over their safety, the FDA has ordered six artificial flavors out of the food supply. If you happen to want to know which products contain these ingredients, you are on your own for now.
The dispute is bringing to light the complex rules that govern what goes in our food, how much the public knows about it, and a mysterious class of ingredients that has evolved over decades.
Listed on food packages, are hundreds of ingredients which simply read as natural flavor or artificial flavor. Even in minute amounts, they help make potato chips taste cheesy or oniony or give fruit candy that sour or sweet taste.
"The food system we have is unimaginable without flavor additives," said Nadia Berenstein, a historian of flavor science based in New York.
The flavors are also at the center of a dispute over how ingredients should be regulated.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is giving companies two years to purge their products of six artificial flavors — even though the FDA made clear it believes the ingredients are safe in the trace amounts they are used.
The six artificial flavors in question, with names like methyl eugenol, benzophenone, ethyl acrylate and pyridine, are used to create cinnamon like or spicy taste, fruity or minty flavors, or even hints of vinegar. The FDA acted due to a lawsuit brought by consumer advocacy groups that cited a 60-year-old regulation known as the Delaney clause. The rule prohibits additives shown to have caused cancer in animals, even if tested at doses far higher than what a person would consume.
Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that sued over the six ingredients, said it's also unknown what effect they might have when used in combination with other ingredients. And since they're listed only as "artificial flavor," he said people don't know in what concentrations they're used in particular products.
"It's all secret. You can't pick up an ice cream or chewing gum or a baked good and have any idea what chemicals are in there," he said.
This is a big step in turning the tables on an industry that looks the other way when it comes to regulating ingredients that could be causing harm in or food supply. There are hundreds more we should be scrutinizing and hope to keep momentum of removing many more.
