Even though knowledge is power, there are some rather nasty things you just do not want to know about. Unfortunately, awareness of some of these things may, like, save the planet or prevent you from getting cancer or protect our food supply. So in that sense, it’s a really lucky thing that there exist people who are going to tell you the whole sordid story, refusing to spare your ears or eyes. Take my friend Wendee, for instance.
Wendee is a freelance science writer. Even though I am the most unscientific person around, she invited me to join her email group of science writers last year. Me, who avoided chemistry, biology and physics in high school, took Earth Science to fulfill the academic requirement AND EVEN THEN only retained one bit of knowledge from that class: how to gleek, as taught by my equally-unscientific pal Sandra. (I know I’ve gone on about the gleeking in another post but I really am proud of this talent. Ask anybody who has ever worked with me.)
However, eager to learn by osmosis, I joined Wendee’s group last summer. As expected, mixed in with the status updates and market information, there has been a fair amount of serious, scholarly, scientific conversation—until the other night. That was when I returned home from a long day of wine and work (no, not in that order), fired up my computer and found the following conversation in my inbox.
Useless (or, gross?) info of the day. Vanilla, strawberry, and raspberry “natural flavor” can come from the castor sacs near a beaver’s anus. And, worse, butter rum flavor (MY FAVORITE) comes from “civet absolute” — an actual scraping inside a civet’s anus. This is all in my article. – Wendee
I just don’t understand why they have to probe the asses of critters when there are actual vanilla beans, strawberries, raspberries, butter, and rum out there. Is it for cost reasons? How easy it to catch a freaking civet anyway…I should think it would be easier to pick some berries. – Miranda
Yeah! How economical is it to trap beavers and raid their castor sacs? Or do they raise them in captivity for this important purpose? And on a more profound level, why does extract of wildlife butt taste good to us? – Sharon
Beaver butt and civet anus? Are you kidding me? How am I ever going to eat ice cream again? (And now, how are you ever going to eat ice cream again?) Sharon has a very good point: why do these things taste good to us? We’re even willing to pay premium dinero for coffee beans that are dug out of civet poop. Say what?
Wendee will be sharing all sorts of information like this and more—oh, so much more— in her forthcoming article for Environmental Health Perspectives, due out in March or April. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a challenge. Incorporate the following sentence into an in-person conversation this week: “How economical is it to trap beavers and raid their castor sacs?” And then do report back with your socio-scientific results. Or maybe just a picture of the look on your conversation partner’s face.
Have any other gross facts to share with us? The door has been opened for you!
Hmm, I’d like to know how the scientists discovered this phenomenon in the first place – or perhaps I wouldn’t like to know! Speaking as someone who went to a school called Beaverwood School for Girls age 11-14, I’m surprised that this gem had previously passed me by! Never a dull moment on your blog, Laura!
Right, hey? How do they know where to start looking? Or how many different animals did they have to violate to find this??!! And so funny that your school was called Beaverwood. I worked at Beaver Lumber for five years, 1988-1993. We had many other names for it…
Om my I am sharing this on facebook. Newsworthy!
Newsworthy, cringeworthy, it covers it all! Heh heh.
Ewwww, that is just so gross, Laura… Wait till I tell my kids the next time I feed them vanilla ice cream – they’re gonna love me for this! Thanks! 🙂
These are the kinds of things that kids point back to years later when they’re blaming you for scarring them, you know that, right?
For the record, no matter how much I want to be the symbol of coffee coolness, there is NO way I would spend money, let alone extra money, for coffee beans that have already been through the ringer. No flipping way. You’ve scared and scarred me now, Laura!
“Been through the ringer” — that’s a nice way to put it, Jo-Anne! Heh heh.
There’s actually a scene in the movie Bucket List about that coffee!
Oh, this is too priceless not to pass along. In fact, I’m passing it on to some of my scientist friends to see if they can top it. My-oh-my. Thanks for the chuckle (and head scratching) in the middle of my work day. Now back at it.
More than happy to oblige, Jagoda. Thanks for reading!
How delightfully disgusting! On the plus side, this blog post is going to make it much easier to give ice cream a pass when I’m tempted to indulge in foods that aren’t so good for me. 🙂
Or we just stick to chocolate flavors… until someone tells us it comes from warthog butt or something…
Next time you enjoy a delightful piece of red velvet cake, consider that many red food dyes are made from carminic acid – the ground up shells of a south american beetle. As an alternative, you could go for the less appealingly named “red dye #40 – which is extracted from coal. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.asp
And I do enjoy my red velvet cake… Actually, though, bug-sourced doesn’t gross me out too much. Coal seems very dicey, and I also thought that red dye #40 was a carcinogen (which is why I started tossing the maraschino cherries that come on desserts. Oh, and because they taste disgusting). Thanks for sharing, John!
Recently, my favorite soy beverage had a new carton design, “Great new taste!” Having many allergies, I sent an email, told them there was nothing wrong with the old taste, and noticed the addition of Natural Flavor on their ingredients list. I told them that it was my experience that when a company failed to identify the natural flavor. It was because it was something the consumer wouldn’t want, and that I had bought my last product from them.Hmm. . . .should’ve copied the FDA . Yeah, right!
Hmm is right. I think you have good reason to be suspicious!
I read this yesterday morning on my tablet BEFORE pouring my cup of coffee. When I did make it into the kitchen, I couldn’t help but wonder what essence of anus might be responsible for the flavors of some of my favorite coffee creamers. Needless to say, the old cup of Joe didn’t didn’t taste the same yesterday. In the past, I had two different students do fairly involved research papers on how many bug parts, etc. that the FDA allows in food. Neither of them dug deeper and covered how much butt is acceptable in what we eat… or maybe the students were just being polite 😉
Hahaha! There must be a student handbook that cautions against discussing animal butt-sourced food items. And, oh yeah, coffee creamers — I can’t even imagine.
The carmine/cochineal = red dye in Strawberry frappuccinos and other red things was a big news item recently, and is also in my article. Starbucks recently said they’d change to a tomato-based dye soon but not sure if they’ve made the switch yet. It also doesnt gross me out but vegans got all upset. HOWEVER, I had to post this link and info – that Japanese researchers have isolated vanilla from cow poop! 🙂
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Japanese_Researchers_Extract_Vanilla_From_Cow_Dung.html
How do all of these researchers come up with these ideas, e.g. to search for flavors in the places they’re searching. Is there some kind of scientific tenet, “Animal poop is full of good stuff,” or something?!
Personally, I’d rather have something isolated from cow poop — one more great use for this already very useful resource — than have anything be actually extracted from an animal’s anus, which they probably have to kill the poor animal to do. If poop, which nobody can avoid anyway, can be turned back into something edible, so be it, but why must we resort to torturing and killing our wildlife just to have a fake flavoring of a natural flavor much more easily obtainable? And does it mean that by eating these foods we might start producing beaver pheromone? Maybe that explains why all the cats in the neighborhood are attracted to me.
“Maybe that explains why all the cats in the neighborhood are attracted to me” — LOL! The pied piper of cats, huh?
The problem with cow poop vanilla flavor is that it is likely just vanillin, which is the chemical in imitation vanilla extracts. Real vanilla has many chemicals in addition to vanillin that give it a deep, complex flavor that we vanilla snobs prefer. I will feed my kids cow poop vanilla ice cream, but when I’m baking or making a caramel sauce give me the real stuff!
Oh man, I hadn’t even heard about cow poop vanilla flavor yet, Robert. But a little googling and I found a story that yes, what is extracted from cow poop is vanillin: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Japanese_Researchers_Extract_Vanilla_From_Cow_Dung.html.
Thanks for stopping by and adding more things to this strange list!
This is true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoreum
But, if it makes you feel better, although the glands are located close to the business end of the intestine, they have nothing to do with it. These glands could just as easily be located elsewhere, but their location “there” makes it easier for the animal to mark their territory, which they also do urinating. And since I mentioned urine, do you know that the waste product Allantoin, which is present in the urine of most mammals except humans and apes, is extensively used in cosmetics, shampoos, toothpaste, etc? It is not isolated from the urine but rather it is produced by chemical synthesis. However, it’s the same product.
Actually, that does make me feel a little bit better. Have to laugh at the name of the Scandinavian biscuits that use castoreum: “Bäverhojt”
I did not know of the origins of Allantoin, though I’ve read it on my labels for years and years. Thanks for sharing more weird science, Rolando!
Oh.My.God how could I POSSIBLY have missed the reference to gleeking the first time I read this?!!! I was the BEST damn gleeker around, I’m telling you. We’ll have to have a contest when I come visit. 🙂
Oh, crap. I think I’ve lost my talents :/
HA! You better start training, then.
P.s. I graduated from Beaverton High School, in Beaverton, OR. Our football team were called the Beavers, and our mascot, of course, was the beaver. I think our whole school should get together and protest this!
Beavers kill! And p.s., I used to work at Beaver Lumber in Vancouver, B.C. Mass protest, let’s do it!
I have some raspberry flavoring that I bought to add to my coffee after the frothing the milk, it wasn’t that good. So today I thought it might be good mixed with iced tea and lime splice and it was pretty tasty. So I thought hey, some strawberry flavoring would be awesome. And then I found this! Ugh, looks like iced tea with lemon or lime.
Ugh! who discovered this ass berry?
Sorry to burst your flavor bubble, Gina… LOL! But I think you’ve coined a new term with “ass berry.” I’m going to use that. Thanks for stopping by!
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Emma, tell us what you really think! LOL!
I used to spend my free time wondering “how was the first loaf of bread invented?” Not anymore! Now it will be “who was the first person to explore a beaver’s ass and discover Essence of Strawberry????? Great! Now, to put my mind to better use, permanently!
Haaa! Yup, kind of makes the invention of bread seem awfully mundane. Thanks for stopping by, Cher!
Bleh!
Now I finally know why my pup loves cat and bat poop so much. It probably tastes like watermelon and passionfruit and creme caramel. I’ll have to stop telling him, “That’s disGUSTING!!!” because it’s clearly a case of pots n kettles.
Haaaahahaha! It sure doesn’t smell like watermelon and passion fruit and creme caramel!
That solves that mystery and I am pouring out my cup of Rum butter tea before the first sip – had this niggling feeling I wouldn’t like the answer to my query of how healthy is rum butter flavor.
Yeah, sorry to be the bearer of disturbing news, Martha. I hear that peppermint is a pretty safe flavor. 😉
Thanks for stopping by!
And I am off the hook for ever having to consider trying to make or buying Rum Balls ever again- for that I thank you as well. 🙂
Well, hey, then I’m happy to oblige!
As I sit here and drink my favorite all natual soda; Cherry Vanilla Cream, I wonder how much beaver butt is in it. I want to know who’s idea was it to use anus related resources for our food.
And is that person sitting somewhere laughing uproariously at us all now? Thanks for stopping by, Yasmine.
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/castoreum.asp
Scientist here. That is mostly used in perfumes. But yes, natural ingredient can be misleading. Not alot of people know this, but you can acctually look up the Material Data Safety Sheet on most products, which lists hazardous components in products. Below is an example for Coke Zero.
https://www.gfs.com/sites/gfs.com/files/256481.pdf
As you can see from the pH, soda is super acidic and not something that should be drank often.
Whoa! No. As humans, we already tend to be overly acidic, literally and figuratively! 🙂
Yes, thank you for that, Leigh! I had heard of these but forgot about them completely. Good to know that.