Secret ingredients are hiding in food under vague terms such as ‘artificial flavor,’ ‘natural flavor,’ and ‘spices,’ report says

While almost all ingredients used in food need to be disclosed, federal regulations allow manufacturers to hide some ingredients behind the vague terms such as “artificial flavor,” “natural flavor,” or “spices.”

Problems arise when companies obscure ingredients behind these terms, according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Flavors can come from natural ingredients or can be made in a factory. The flavor of vanilla, for example, can be extracted from the vanilla bean, or it can come from artificially produced vanilla and other chemicals found in the bean. When flavor, not whole ingredients, are included in ingredients lists, they don’t need to be identified with the exact chemicals that make them up; instead, they can be described as “natural flavors” or “artificial flavors.”

A consumer has no way of knowing how many flavors might be in the product, said Thomas Galligan, principal scientist for food additives and supplements for the CSPI.

A loophole allowing the use of “natural flavors” and “artificial flavors” is included in the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which requires ingredients to be listed on food labels. Federal law also requires that substances added to food, including flavor substances, be determined to be safe before companies start using them.

Food manufacturers can petition to the Food and Drug Administration or, using a 1958 amendment to the act, use an exception called “generally recognized as safe.” It was created for traditionally used ingredients such as vinegar and baking powder.

Of the 10,000 chemicals used in food – or that can end up in food through contact with packaging – more than 3,000 have never been thoroughly reviewed by the FDA, Galligan said. About 1,000 of those have entered the food supply through the secret GRAS pathway. The rest of them were greenlit by panels convened by a trade group that provides information to FDA but not through formal GRAS notice, he said.

“American consumers are likely laboring under the false impression that the FDA reviews and affirms the safety to the flavor additives used in food,” said Galligan. “The fact of the matter is that the FDA has largely abandoned its role in approving new flavor chemicals and has handed its authority over to food companies. That’s an obvious conflict of interest and keeps consumers from knowing what’s in their food.”

CSPI’s report has several recommendations for federal and state policymakers:

• At the federal level, require full disclosure of all ingredients, including spices and flavors, on packaged food and meat and poultry labels. Federal policymakers should close the GRAS loophole by requiring all flavor substances and other food chemicals to come to market via food additive petitions.
• At the state level, ban unsafe and unnecessary food additives.
• For the food industry, begin full flavor and spices disclosure and stop exploiting the GRAS loophole altogether.

Comments

[azure]

Exactly the same (or perhaps not quite as bad) as "inert ingredients" in products like pesticides. Inert ingredients don't have to be listed, but they're "inert" only in the sense that they're not intended to do whatever the product is supposed to do, so they can be risky for a human or cat or dog to be exposed to since the chemical compound may not kill ants, it's "inert". https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.9374 Neither EPA nor the FDA are sufficiently well funded or empowered to truly protect the public or to withstand extensive lobbying & litigation by the corporations they're intended to regulate in ways that protect public health and public interests.

[Rita]

Thanks for the information and the link. I didn't know that most pesticides aren't tested, and I know that the EPA is way behind in testing, with their inert ingredients.

Yes, both agencies are underfunded and with weak authority are subject to industry pressure.