About Flavoring, Natural, Extracts & Artificial

There are different terms used for food flavorings that can be confusing. They mainly come in forms of Extracts, Natural and Artificial.  Below we will explain what the difference is so you know what you are drinking and you don’t put anything is your body that you didn’t know. 

Labelling being an issue, a food product may be listed as “Flavoring” or “Natural Flavoring” in its ingredients. Flavorings can mean artificial or natural flavoring, but is mostly used to mean Artificial Flavoring.

• Extracts are made by placing a raw material such as vanilla beans in alcohol and water. This extracts elements from the raw material into the liquid mixture to give you vanilla extract. Nothing else should be added to an extract for it to be a pure extract.
• Natural flavoring is made from various extracts or natural substances, which when mixed in a particular formula gives you the required taste.
• Artificial flavor can be added to a food, whether alone or with natural flavoring agents, the word "Artificial" or "Imitation" must be included as an integral part of the flavoring name. You can tell an Artificial flavoring from how strong it is, it is very overpowering.  It can last for years keeping the same strong flavor profile that it started with.  That tells you how bad it must be for you.