I Got Your Flavor Here!

While sipping a vanilla coke on a hot summer day in the south somewhere out in nature admiring the serenity of it all I hear a faint voice shouting at me. Who in the whole could be interrupting my moment of passive pensiveness? Oh I forget I was not out here alone, and I was not in the south, I was somewhere in Central Park daydreaming again. A good buddy soon to be former friend was running up to me frantically asking me what I was doing. I looked at him like he was one of those aliens from Mystery Science Theater 3000. “Didn’t I tell you not to interrupt my daydreaming?” I inquired with bated breath. “Yeah, I know what you said but I just wanted to know how the beaver balls tasted?” he said with a smirk look on his face. “Well last time I checked I had a cool refreshing Coca Cola in my hands and not a beaver, but being a partial Canuck I could use some beaver if you catch my drift.” I replied. It was then that he hit me with the super conspiracy of food tampering by the man. He went on to relay to me how This kosher site claims that castoreum (spelled castorium on the site), derived from beaver sex glands, is used in some berry flavored drinks and sometimes it’s used in orange soda.  That was not the worst of it he when on with the grimy details this walking geek encyclopedia. The encyclopedia says: ”Both sexes [of beavers that is] have scent glands located in a pouch in the anal region. The musky secretion, castoreum, which may function as a sexual attractant, was once believed to have medicinal properties, and the glands, or castors, were of commercial value.” But what did all this have to do with the vanilla coke I was sipping and why was it slowly beginning to become less and less enjoyable?

So after throwing my less than wonderful tasting coke away I had to find out for myself if what this geek said was really true. Remember believe half of what you taste and nothing that you smell or something along those lines. I scoured the internet for what seemed like hours but in fact was only 3 minutes and 55 seconds because I used Google as my preferred search engine, and no I am not getting any money for giving them pops. Well needless to say what I found may not just disgust some of you but turn you in to full-fledged vegans or even worse yet, label readers. Imagine that having to pick up every can, every box, everything that you put to your mouth you gotta know what is in it because you became “aware”. Now you can’t run around in ignorance and bliss enjoying all those former foods you ate. Now I know some of you out there will ate any and everything on God’s green earth, to you I say this particular blog does not concern you, so move onto the next blog. To those of my remaining audience, all one of you I say let’s begin. I mean my life was ruined why not ruin someone else’s.

I found out at a tender age about all these additives and preservatives while doing a project for science class. I found out that they would not kill you right there and then but if eaten regularly over long periods of time like Jaws it will get you. If it causes death in lab rats and they still put it in human food then you just replaced that lab rat. Oh sorry I was getting off topic there let me refocus myself. So besides the stuff they add that can kill you softly they also add some pretty questionable things to “enhance” the flavor of your food. If someone told me they did this kinda thing in China I would be okay, after all it’s China, pretty much anything goes over there. But this is America we have the FDA, also known as the food FBI, sort of, and just like any real federal agent is bound to take a payoff or look the other way for the right amount of money; well the FDA is no different.

The FDA claims:
It’s ok to use beaver balls in pharmaceuticals. Not only that but, it’s also in the directory of food additives. And is ”generally recognized as safe for their intended use, within the meaning of section 409 of the Act.”

Section 409 appears to indicate:

“Section 409, applying to additives, requires that only uses that may be demonstrated to be “safe” be permitted. Soon after this section’s addition to the FFDCA in 1958, the agency officially defined “safe” as meaning “that there is a reasonable certainty in the minds of competent scientists that the substance is not harmful under the intended conditions of use” but recognized that absolute safety could not be definitively guaranteed (21 CFR 170.3). “

Look as I may I haven’t found anywhere where it states that it can’t be used in actual food. Is it possible? I think it’s a stretch, but if so what nut sat down and thought “hmm, I wonder how beaver balls might work as a beverage flavoring?” I will have to ask my two favorite Canucks Bob and Doug McKenzie if they know which northerner is responsible for this unhygienic insemination. If you think it gets any better you will have to wait  to taste this flavor enhanced rainbow because this blog will be continued…happy eating