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  • 2013-02-05 (xsd:date)
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  • Does Vanilla Flavoring Come from Beaver Anal Secretions? (en)
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  • Castoreum (or castor, not to be confused with the oil of a castor bean) is a yellowish-brown, unctuous substance with a strong, penetrating odor which beavers secrete from castor sacs located in skin cavities between the pelvis and the base of the tail and spray when scent-marking their territory. (The location of the beaver's castor sacs means that castoreum also often includes a mixture of anal gland secretions and urine as well.) Due to the beaver's typical diet of leaves and bark, castoreum doesn't stink as other similar animal secretions do, but rather has a musky, vanilla scent described at the perfume site Fragrantica as a sharp spreading tar-like note that reminds one of the odor of birch tar or Russian leather that when diluted in alcohol picks up more pleasant, musky and fruity nuances. Because of its scent properties castoreum has long been employed in the perfume-making industry, and processed forms of castoreum have also been used as food additives, in the latter case primarily as enhancers of vanilla, strawberry and raspberry flavorings found in products such as iced tea, ice cream, gelatin, candy, fruit-flavored drinks, and yogurt. However, the publicity afforded castoreum in recent years via alarmist food activists and Where does vanilla flavouring come from? and Did you know? social media posts is vastly overblown: The use of castoreum in common food products today is exceedingly rare, in large part because collecting the substance is difficult (and therefore expensive): According to Fernelli's Handbook of Flavor Ingredients, total annual national consumption of castoreum, castoreum extract, and castoreum liquid combined is only about 292 pounds, which works out to an average of less than a millionth of a pound per person in the U.S. Compare that figure with the approximately 20 million pounds of vanilla naturally harvested from real vanilla beans every year. Depending upon as scarce a substance as castoreum to flavor the ice cream and candy found on store shelves would create nationwide shortages of those items and drive up their prices beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest consumers. In 2011, the Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) queried five companies that produce vanilla flavorings about whether they used any castoreum in their products, and all five replied that they did not: Castoreum as a food additive is classified by the Food and Drug Administration as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), and therefore food manufacturers don't always have to include castoreum in their ingredients lists and may instead refer to it as natural flavoring. However yucky that may seem, according to a 2007 safety assessment published the International Journal of Toxicology, consumption of castoreum poses no health risk to humans: Castoreum does still have a significant market even today, but almost exclusively for the use of the perfume industry, not the food industry. (en)
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