Let's talk about natural flavors. Sometimes people think that natural flavors mean vegan.

No, they don't. Let's differentiate natural flavors versus artificial flavoring.

So the question is, how do they make flavoring taste like something and keep it natural?

Well, they use the essence of something. They might use a spice, some extract, fruit, fruit juice, veggie juice, edible yeast, herbs, bark, buds, plants, roots of plants, leafs of plants, but they also use meat, seafood, poultry, and egg.

That's right. So when you have a plant-based veggie burger, how do you think they get it to taste like a burger? Well, this is how they do it. They use animal products.

I just wanted to bring this to your attention if you think that it's completely vegan. Well, usually it's not.

Now personally, I don't have a problem with that because I'm not a vegan, but what I want to do is to raise awareness on the difference between natural flavors versus artificial flavoring.

Artificial flavoring has to do a synthetic chemicals that could be coming from petroleum or other chemicals. The molecules are similar, but they're definitely not the same.

Now, here's another point that I want to bring up that because I produce certain supplements that require flavoring, there's one thing that a lot of people don't realize.

When you have dry flavors compared to liquid, you have to use various carriers to make them dry.

And the most common carrier is maltodextrin, which is the highest thing on the glycemic index. It is way higher than pure glucose.

Like glucose is like 100 maltodextrin, I think is like 120. It can be even more.

So it's not keto friendly, but they use that in the flavors. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. All my products do not use maltodextrin.

I think it's called acacia gum. Another point, the FDA doesn't require labels to indicate what's in their natural flavoring.

That's just another point I want to bring up. And so this is why you might see it on a vegan label.

When you buy chicken from the store, if you look on the ingredient, a lot of times it'll say natural flavoring.

Why do they have to add flavoring to the chickens? Because chicken is so bland and they have to make it taste like chicken.

They're actually going to add chicken flavoring to chicken. And they also do it with pork and beef. So read your labels.

So last point I want to bring up is monosodium glutamate can also be disguised as natural flavorings.

I mean, in the past, I remember eating certain foods that had natural flavorings, but had no MSG.

And the food just tasted too good. And I do know that when I consume food with MSG, first of all, I'll be hungry in about an hour and a half.

And I'll be very, very thirsty because the monosodium glutamate. And that's what occurred after I ate that food. So read the labels, use judgment and realize that just because it's natural doesn't mean that it's vegan.

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