'Natural Flavours?'

If you are free watch the Today Tonight show on Ch7. tonight (11th Dec), at 6.30pm. They will be covering a story on the 'flavours' used in ice-cream.There are more than  two thousand approved flavouring chemicals that don't have to be described on food labels because they are considered to be closely guarded trade secrets.

The fact is that most processed foods contain flavouring additives that have been made in large chemical factories.

A number of years ago when I was lecturing about Food Additives & Children's Behaviour I included a ppt slide of the chemicals which are in 'strawberry flavour'. They are too numerous to list here as there are 48, the last of which is 'solvent'!! The remaining 47 are difficult to pronounce & are certainly not ingredients our grandmother's would recognize!

The butter flavour diacetyl – used in products such as microwave popcorn has been linked to a rare and deadly respiratory disease known as Popcorn Workers Lung. Its victims include young, healthy, non-smoking flavouring industry workers who have been exposed to vapours when diacetyl is heated.

So far three workers have died, and many are awaiting lung transplants.