One thing that I always look out for in my food is the presence of natural flavors. You might picture me with my cart full of carefully selected frozen dinners or boxes of granola. Well, thankfully that is not the case. Where one might least expect it is where you find it. A good example is tea. Now there are so many brands of high quality tea out there. As I read the labels there are maybe two or three brands that don't have natural flavors. Many of the brands that do are labeled organic and charge a premium. According to the government rules about organic, "natural flavors" are allowed. So what are natural flavors, you ask? I will not bore you with and explanation. Instead, I provide you with a link to this eye-opening segment from 60 minutes.
What strikes me most about this story is how much effort these people go through to mimic the flavors of biodiversity. There is a moment that one of the scientists opens her cabinet full of only different varieties of raspberry flavor. It is almost comical. When we lose biodiversity of taste because of commoditization we are left with a cabinet full of little bottles to mimic them.
60 minutes- The Flavorists
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