http://foodbabe.com/2011/12/01/chemical-warfare-with-natural-flavor/

Chemical Warfare with “Natural Flavor”

By Food Babe

I am so happy I don’t have to watch the news on TV everyday to know if something exciting is going on in the world. You see – I am a firm believer in if there is something I need to watch or know – someone will tell me. And that’s just what happened to me this week when my friend Ami posted a link to the 60 mins video featuring Givaudan – a company founded in Switzerland that is responsible for overloading the American food supply with “flavor”….

I highly recommend reading the transcript when you have time if you haven’t already seen it – it is startling to say the least. Givaudan is the largest flavor manufacturing company in the world. They pride themselves on making flavors that are irresistible – starting from mother nature, taking something as simple as a strawberry and then destroying everything mother nature intended for it. In the clip – you will witness outrageous acts of smugness from the Givaudan scientists – a lady so happy that she can chemically reproduce hundreds of variations of raspberry flavor and smiling when she says she can make whisky taste more oaky with one of her concoctions. The whole place is “cloaked in secrecy” because they don’t want you to know what they are selling you in their “natural” flavor (the words you will see on a back of food packaging) or who they are selling to. There is nothing pure about the flavors they produce – strawberry and vanilla can come from a “beaver’s backside,” according to the Givaudan scientists.

What are companies like Givaudan doing to our food supply? It might be ingenious chemical wizardry to them. But I call it WARFARE. Is it too far to say they are using chemical warfare to slowly kill us one by one…? Let’s look at the definition of Chemical Warfare….”warfare using chemical agents to kill or injure or incapacitate the enemy.” This really could be true. The uninformed public is the enemy, getting injured and incapacitated – one tastebud at a time.

The natural and artificial chemicals that flavor manufactures engineer are contributing to what David Kessler (former head of the FDA) calls a “food carnival” in your mouth. The inability to stop eating because the flavors they have synthesized trick your mind into wanting more and more. They don’t want you to have the full essence of the strawberry – they want you to only experience the best 1 millionth part of the taste – so you get “addicted” and keep having to go back for more and more, searching continuously for gratification – eating more of that product which in turns fills Big Food Companies pockets. The Big Food Companies are “hijacking” your taste buds one by one.

Most of us know artificial flavors derived from petroleum aren’t good for us, but the with the words “natural flavor” food chemists and companies can put whatever they want in your food that is “generally regarded as safe” including excitotoxins. Natural flavor can legally contain natural occurring “glutamate” bi-products like MSG – which are known excitotoxins. These excitotoxins are some of the chemicals that cause your taste buds to experience irresistibility when it comes to food. Ever wonder why you can’t just eat one chip? Or one cookie? Or why you remember a taste of a product so distinctly and crave uncontrollably? Excitotoxins can be to blame. Excitotoxins overexcite your cells literally until they die or are damaged causing “injury” and “incapacitating” you with disease. When consumed over time, excitotoxins can cause nerve disorders resulting a myriad of diseases from stroke to Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s. And lots of other side effects too – like obesity, migraines, fatigue and depression.

I walked into a conventional grocery store today. The first product I picked up had this “natural flavor” in it – and then the next product I picked up did too – and the next one. WTF? It was pretty freaking scary. Why do Americans eat more calories than any other industrialized nation? It’s not because we have more money or are more hungry. It’s because our food supply is chemically produced and enhanced with these “natural flavors” along with extra fat, extra salt and extra sugar and it’s EVERYWHERE and we are being TARGETED. You can’t escape it – you want salad dressing on your salad? You want a little mustard or mayo on your sandwich? Would you like some salsa with your chips? Those products I found today all have “natural flavor” added to it.

A lot of people think you shouldn’t blame these food companies, flavor chemists, or anyone else for people’s inability to stop eating and from getting obese – but when companies practice this type of trickery – you can’t help but realize we are all at a disadvantage. How much do you have to research and know about your food in order to trust it? Can we expect all people in all income levels to have the time to find and understand this knowledge? Shouldn’t we be able to trust the mustard the grocery store down the street is selling to us? It’s amazing we can’t trust something labeled “natural flavor” – it sounds so simple, friendly and well natural… but really can be so deadly.

So you have a choice. You can let the food companies and flavor factories conduct chemical warfare on you. Or you can treat them like the enemy and stop buying their products. Don’t let them injure or incapacitate you. VOTE with your Dollars – not just once in a while but always when it comes to food. Your health is the only thing you’ve got. Next time when you see labels like the ones above and see those brands. Run as fast as you can in the other direction. Drop the bag I tell you! Just drop the bag and run! And share this information with your friends and family too.