Have you ever wondered where artificial raspberry, vanilla or strawberry flavor comes from?
These are the dried perineal glands of the beaver. They contain castoreum — a food additive usually listed as ‘natural flavoring’ in the ingredient list.
Castoreum is the exudate from the castor sacs of the mature North American Beaver, it is a yellowish secretion in combination with the beaver’s urine, used during scent marking of territory.
However, it is not a laboratory-created plant, nor does it have a distinctive sound. It refers to an excrement produced by beavers’ anal castor sacs. This chemical has been used for ages in medications and soaps, as well as food.
In the USA, castoreum as a food additive is considered by the FDA to be generally recognized as safe, often referenced simply as a “natural flavoring” in products’ lists of ingredients. While it can be used in both foods and beverages as a vanilla, raspberry and strawberry flavoring.
Using Beaver Sac Excretion as a Vanilla Flavoring
However, there’s no need to be concerned about how much castoreum you may have accidentally taken. The FDA has judged it safe, stating that “a long historical use of castoreum extract as a flavoring and fragrance ingredient has resulted in no reports of human adverse reactions.”
However, organizations avoid it for a number of reasons. For starters, it keeps their items from being certified kosher. Furthermore, the usage of beaver sac excretion is pricey.
“In the flavor industry, you need tons and tons of material to work with,” says flavor chemist Gary Reineccius, from the University of Minnesota. “It’s not like you can grow fields of beavers to harvest. There aren’t very many of them. So it ends up being a very expensive product — and not very popular with food companies.”
“Proud to be Castoreum”
Similarly, Michelle Francl, a chemist at Bryn Mawr College, assures people that there’s no chance that beaver excretion of any kind is snuck into foods because of the high costs. Especially when compared to plants like vanilla orchids, which can be grown and harvested on a massive scale.
However, people may use castoreum in niche products like bäversnaps, a Swedish liquor. In those cases, the unique ingredient is proudly advertised. The substance is harvested by trapping and killing beavers before removing their castor glands, which are dried and ground up. Alcohol extracts castoreum, a method similar to how vanilla extract is taken from plants.
Medicinal Uses
Surprisingly, sac discharge is a flexible therapy that has been used throughout history. It was used to heal stomach disturbances, fevers, and mental diseases, as well as to make soap and lotion. For a while, cigarettes contained it to enhance the naturally sweet odor. Castoreum includes salicylic acid, the pain-relieving component of aspirin. As disgusting as its origin may sound, this material has applications.
The discovery of castoreum came during the height of the fur trade, which almost wiped out the beaver population in North America and Eurasia. In fact, the species faced extinction in the 16th century in Europe and the 19th century in North America
How Beavers Use Their Sac Excretion
Of course, sac excretion is helpful for the beavers themselves. They use it to mark their territories, although the males in beaver families usually take charge of this task. They also use it to identify family members since each beaver’s sac scent differs. The substance also makes their tails and fur more slick and water-resistant.
Your Vanilla Ice Cream is Safe
Their diet of leaves, bark, and other bits of fauna are responsible for the sweet-smelling vanilla aroma. But don’t worry about finding castoreum in your food under the innocent-sounding label “natural flavorings.”
“If food companies can find anything else to substitute for vanilla or to create a strawberry flavor, they will,” Reineccius says. “It actually isn’t very hard to make a basic strawberry flavor that you would recognize with just two compounds.”