Tag Archives: castoreum

WHY IS VANILLA SO EXPENSIVE?

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Last month I said that vanilla is the world’s second most expensive spice, just after saffron. Several people asked me why vanilla is so expensive, and since it is so expensive, how come there are so many inexpensive vanilla products, like vanilla pudding at dollar stores?
First, about the price….the price of vanilla has skyrocketed in the past few years. Almost 80% of all the world’s vanilla beans come from the island of Madagascar. They have had terrible weather there for several years, causing a collapse in vanilla bean production. As a result, a kilo of vanilla beans currently sells for around $500. Just 3 years ago, the price was under $100. Second, how come there are so many cheap vanilla products? That’s because most vanilla products are made with imitation vanilla. Less than 1% of the world’s vanilla flavor comes from real vanilla beans. Last year, Americans consumed over 2 million pounds of imitation vanilla. There isn’t enough real vanilla in the world to just make just all the vanilla ice cream.

Natural Flavor. Remember, when you see the words ‘natural flavor’ on a vanilla product, that doesn’t mean that there is real vanilla in it. ‘Natural flavor’ means that the flavor was derived from an organic source, which could be any plant or animal. Most ‘natural flavor’ vanilla is made from wood tar creosote, which sounds rather unappetizing; however, some imitation vanilla is still made from castoreum, which is much less appetizing. Castoreum is an anal secretion of beavers. Beavers produce castoreum to scent-mark their territory. (This is one of those tidbits of information that makes people say: ‘I would have been happier not knowing about that.’) There is an easy way to be sure that there is no castoreum in your vanilla ice cream. Look for a kosher seal. Castoreum is not kosher.  As a rabbi once told me at a kosher certifying booth at the Fancy Food Show: “You can’t make kosher food out of something that came out of a beaver’s rear end.” (Between 80% and 90% of all kosher food is purchased by non-Jews. This is why.) My advice is that when in doubt about vanilla ice cream, go with Ben & Jerry’s. Their vanilla ice cream is made with real vanilla. By the way, I use real vanilla in my chocolate.

Neapolitan Ice Cream

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neapolitanI have never understood the appeal of Neapolitan ice cream. I never liked it. Neapolitan ice cream is that 3 color ice cream that you frequently see at children’s birthday parties. It’s 1/3 chocolate, 1/3 vanilla, and 1/3 strawberry.  It usually comes in a square or rectangular brick and is sold in nearly every supermarket in the United States. Neapolitan ice cream is one of America’s top selling ice cream products, and it has been that way all my life. But – why do people buy it? It always tastes lousy. The chocolate is usually OK, the vanilla is bland, and nobody likes the strawberry. The strawberry ice cream in Neapolitan usually gets eaten last or not at all. It seems that every time someone opens up a container of Neapolitan ice cream in their freezer, the chocolate and vanilla are gone, but the strawberry is all still there and covered with frost because it’s been in the freezer so long. I think the only reason that people buy Neapolitan ice cream is because it is colorful.

BEAVER URINE. Why don’t people eat the strawberry section of Neapolitan ice cream? Maybe it’s the beaver urine. None of the mass market brands of Neapolitan ice cream are made with real strawberries. The strawberry section of Neapolitan ice cream is usually flavored with beaver urine. Yes – you read that right – beaver urine. To be technical, imitation strawberry ice cream is flavored with castoreum, a chemical produced by beavers to scent mark their territory. It is extracted from beaver urine. Castoreum is used to create a number of different artificial flavors besides strawberry. A lot of raspberry ice cream and sorbet are also made from beaver urine. I wonder how much Neapolitan ice cream they would sell if they had to put on the label ‘flavored with beaver urine.’ I suppose that for most people it wouldn’t make any difference. After all, most people never read ingredients labels.

NATURAL STRAWBERRY FLAVOR. Don’t be fooled by the words ‘natural flavor’ or ‘natural strawberry flavor’ on the ingredients label on Neapolitan ice cream. ‘Natural strawberry flavor’ does not mean the flavor came from strawberries. It means that the flavor came from a natural or organic source, and beaver urine is natural and organic.

Civet Absolute and Castoreum

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CIVET ABSOLUTE. I regularly go to industrial food shows. A big one is coming up in January. That’s where I get to meet chocolate processors and their technical experts. When I come back from these shows, people sometimes ask me: “What was the most disgusting thing you saw at the show?” Well, there are a lot of terrible ingredients in commercially processed foods, but for me, the most repulsive food additive is an artificial flavoring called civet absolute. It is used to give candy a caramel, butter, or rum flavor. Civet absolute is a secretion produced by African civet cats to scent mark their territory. Civet absolute is scraped out of the anuses of civet cats. (Yes, you read that right.) This oily secretion is collected twice a week. The cats have to be sedated first because the scraping is so painful. Civet absolute has a very powerful odor. In full strength, civet absolute just smells like cat urine, but when diluted to 1/10 of 1% or less, it smells wonderful! I once smelled it myself at a food trade show. It smelled like sweet butter with a slight scent of lily. I felt ashamed of myself afterward, thinking about the suffering of those poor, miserable cats.

Several years ago, I saw an orthodox rabbi at one of these wholesale food shows working at the booth of a kosher certifying organization. I asked him if civet absolute is kosher. The rabbi gave me a stern look. I never forgot his answer. He said: “You can’t make kosher food out of something that came out of a cat’s rear end.” He looked angry, as though he was mad with me for asking the question. Because civet absolute is very expensive, most candy makers now use civetone instead. It’s synthetic version of the real thing. Today, most civet absolute is purchased by cosmetic companies. Some of the world’s most expensive perfume contains civet absolute. Under pressure from animal rights groups, some department stores are now refusing to sell perfume containing civet absolute.

CASTOREUM. Sadly, there are quite a few other food additives for sale at industrial food shows that are as repulsive as civet absolute, products like castoreum. Have you ever seen ‘The Angry Beavers’ TV show? Well, castoreum is probably what the beavers are angry about. Castoreum is used to make artificial strawberry and raspberry flavoring. It is a secretion produced by beavers to scent mark their territory. I like beavers. I think it’s fascinating to watch these small, industrious animals building enormous dams. I never get tired of watching busy beavers at work. At food trade shows, I sometimes look at the salesmen selling products like castoreum and civet absolute and wonder: “What kind of person would sell something like this for a living?” And – just in case you were wondering – No, I do not use civet absolute or castoreum! In fact, I never use artificial flavors or colors.

‘NATURALLY FLAVORED’ STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM.

Before I leave the subject of castoreum, I would like to say something about the term ‘naturally flavored.’ You can find the words ‘naturally flavored’ on the labels of thousands of food products, but this term does not mean what most people think it means. ‘Naturally flavored’ just means that the flavor came from an organic source. If you buy cheap strawberry ice cream or raspberry sorbet, the odds are pretty high that it is flavored with castoreum. Don’t bother looking for the word ‘castoreum’ on the label. You won’t find it there. The government does not require food processors to tell you if a product contains castoreum, so none of them do. If you want real strawberries in your strawberry ice cream, beware of the words ‘naturally flavored’ on the label. Instead, look for the words ‘strawberry’ or ‘strawberry puree’ on the ingredients list. It’s usually the expensive brands, like Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen Dazs, that are made with real strawberries. So the next time you see cheap strawberry ice cream for sale in a supermarket, before you put it in your cart, ask yourself: “I do really want to eat ice cream that is flavored with beaver urine? Beaver urine!”

Would you like to know more or less about what is in the commercially processed foods that you buy? Would you like to know more so you make better choices, or is this information just too depressing to read about?