"Canada Dry Ginger Ale is made with 100% natural flavors including real ginger."
You can find this in the fine print of a recent Canada Dry Ginger Ale. You can see it on the label on the can (left).
Everything in the statement is absolutely true, but like a lot of statements from food companies, this isn't saying much.
Ginger qualifies as a natural flavor, according to the FDA, since it comes from a "spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof."
So good to know that ginger is in ginger ale.
The issue is bragging about "100% natural flavors." Every natural flavor is a natural flavor, by definition. So every food product that has natural flavors has 100% natural flavors. If the flavors are artificial, they are categorized as artificial flavors. And yes, all the artificial flavors are 100% artificial flavors.
Bragging about natural flavors isn't all that noteworthy, especially since the most infamous natural flavor is castoreum, secured from the beaver anal gland. We aren't saying Canada Dry ginger ale contains castoreum, but if a food product has castoreum, they won't be bragging about that natural flavor.
The other issue with using "100% natural flavors" is that the fact implies that the soft drink itself is 100% natural flavors. The majority of any mainstream regular soft drink is carbonated water and high-fructose corn syrup.
Even the ginger in Canada Dry ginger ale isn't that significant.
Technically, Canada Dry is correct. Bragging about having 100% natural flavors is like being a human being bragging about breathing oxygen.
photo credit: Canada Dry
Comments