I was surprised to learn this week that beaver anal gland extract is used in food products. I was more surprised to learn that it does not have to be clearly labeled- simply “natural flavors” suffices. From here:
This is America, and so if people want to spruce up their food with secretions from the anal passages of beavers, I guess that is their business. On the same premise though, I think I ought to have the right to respectfully decline to consume beaver anal passage secretions according to my own personal beliefs. I can’t make that choice if this stuff doesn’t appear on food labels any more clearly than “natural flavors”. Yes, I can concede that these flavors are indeed “natural”, but that doesn’t give me enough information.
Therefore, I propose that any substance from a beaver’s anal passage ought to be legally required to be clearly identified on food ingredients labels.
I agree. I don’t even care if there’s any in the product – I just think all food labels should say “Beaver anal gland extract.”
More seriously, though – I strongly recommend not looking into where any more of your food comes from, if you find this so objectionable that we need to legislate labels for it.
But then we’ve got to put labels on our food for crushed beetle shells and God knows what else. It’s just easier to avoid foods that list “natural flavorings” as one of their ingredients.
Speaking more precisely, the substance comes from castor sacks located in skin cavities between the pelvis and the base of the tail, if it had to be obtained “naturally” then it would indeed have some urine and feces thanks to the location of where the glands are, but IIUC usually the sacks are removed from the animal before the animal could have a chance to use it for marking his territory.
That was an article from what the Swedish National Food Agency is declaring.
While it is true that in the USA the food additive is classified by the Food and Drug Administration as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) in practice the chance of getting bad publicity takes care of the issue:
I wonder who the first person was to finish skinning and cooking the beaver and have that last little bit left and say “hmm, doesn’t taste to bad, but a little bit in the cookie dough”.
I also see from the wiki page that it’s what they make new car smell out of (the one that you spray in used cars) to make it smell like leather.
BTW the wiki page note on the “new car smell” was unsourced, and going to “new car smell” has that Castoreum item too, but with [citation needed] IOW, unsourced too.
Isn’t the danger with that that people might feel inappropriately bothered by knowing their product contains beaver anal secretions and wrongly believe that their food is less tasty or safe?
Probably one of the first people to eat beavers. Pre-industrial people generally ate every part of the animal that wasn’t poisonous/nauseating because food was a lot harder to get. And they weren’t as squeamish as us given that they had to do their own butchering and so on.
This is all nice to know, but 1) you’re not going to change my mind about eating beaver anal gland extract no matter how nice you make it sound and 2) the only way to know it isn’t in every product that contains “natural flavors” is to require a more specific labeling of it.
I don’t think it is up to one person to decide for another that they are “inappropriately bothered” by the prospect of beaver anal gland extracts in their food. Whether it is more or less tasty or safe in one person’s opinion is moot if the other person doesn’t want it. Just label it like other ingredients and let people make up their own minds.
Do you go around telling Jews that they are “inappropriately bothered” by the prospect of a food product containing pork? Do you tell vegans they are “inappropriately bothered” by the prospect of a food product containing milk?
Maybe you do. If you must, we have a 1st Amendment that protects your right to do so. But the vision of America I am presenting here isn’t complicated in the least. People are free to do what they want, and that comes first. People are free to notice others and tell them that they are morons, but that comes second- this doesn’t void a person’s freedom to do (legal) things others disapprove of.
Sneaking beaver anal gland secretions into my food without labeling it restricts my freedom in a way that I believe is un-American. If you want to sell food, label the ingredients. It couldn’t be more simple.
Meh. The FDA deems a certain level of insect parts and rodent hairs in food as GRAS as well (see post #10). Nobody is being deceived, here; it’s all on their website. If I were to be overly twitterpated by hints of pork or milk or unsavory animal parts in my food, I suppose I’d be extra careful about where I sourced my food.
And I personally wouldn’t trust the FDA to monitor every step of the production of every food product in existence, anyway. And more unenforceable and frivolous regulations, we do not need.
Uh, no, you are missing that that is referring to the live animal. Nowhere it is mentioned that Castoreum is collected by squeezing the gland while the anus is still attached. AFAIK you clean and cut the animal, the glands are then processed outside the animal and are already detached from the anus.
I know that you are trying to make a point regarding GMO labelling, but you need to drop this silly idea, it is a straw man too as I’m not telling you that you should eat badly processed or picked up from a tree or pond beaver squirt. Based on the evidence presented no one is and if you think vegan or religious groups do not have any power you are also wrong.
Any thing that has a label is not food. It is just stuff that some people put in their mouth instead of food. Pull a carrot out of the ground,note there is no label attached, butcher a chicken. no label, pick an apple off a tree, no label. Food doesn’t have labels just other stuff. If you mix a bunch of shit together and wish to pretend it is food what should it matter what label you put on it?
Not so much for coloring any more, but lac bug resin is still widely used for a lot of applications.
Flour, grain and cereal products have “GRAS” levels of bug parts and rodent hairs as a matter of fact, as do jams and jellies, peanut butter and other nut products, pie filling, donuts, pesto, tomato sauce, etc.
In the case of GRAS insect parts and rodent hairs, it is largely a case of those things being kind of unavoidable anyway. Mass-produced food gets those things in it simply because there are bugs and rodents around, and we pretty much can’t rid ourselves of them.
Castoreum isn’t an accident. Ingredients: castroreum. Boom! You’re done. What exactly is the controversy with labeling ingredients?
It isn’t clear IMHO. I don’t want it regardless.
Let’s keep this focused on beaver anal gland extract. If someone uses that as a food additive, put the word ‘castoreum’ on the label. And, I’m not seeing your point about the power of vegans or religious groups. Clarify, please.
That’s not very convincing. Ever bought a can of soup? It’s food, it has multiple ingredients, those are listed on the label. If one of them is beaver anal gland extract, I’d like to know that.
You are indeed not looking at this clearly, vegan groups and religious groups (IIRC the colorant that was made out of bugs was removed because religious groups complained indeed) already put the kibbutz to the idea to use castoreum as a food additive, so for all what you did your point is a moot one.
