The other night, I was reading Sam’s digital photography book and one of the recommended subjects for macro photography was the small print in miniature car models.
Well, I don’t have miniature car models to photograph but every item from the grocery has some small print at the back. Last night, I was drinking a bottle of C2 green tea and started assessing the probable distance between the camera lens and the smallest print on the label. The smallest print was the list of ingredients. Something caught my eye.
Among the listed ingredients was “natural color”. What the heck was that? I mean, isn’t natural color an inherent property of anything? Why should it be listed?
So, I read up. Below is a snippet from Beverage Industry:
As consumer interest in natural foods continues to increase, the demand for natural colors has as well. Natural colors have been around for many years, but recent technology has made them more stable and easily available. Fruits and vegetables are the main source for natural colors, which are most often in pinks, magentas and red shades.
[...]
Pauleau’s company, David Michael has a large range of natural colors that protect pigments from oxidative degradation and have better stability. The company also developed a range of natural reds that remain stable in ascorbic acid, a common ingredient in soft drinks, including Strawberry Red, Red Fruit and Cherry shades…
Oh, alright. So it means the natural color of something is extracted and used to artificially enhance the color of beverages. Ergo, the color of the liquid in my C2 green tea is, in fact, artificial because it was merely enhanced albeit with natural colorants. That’s quite a runaround to make people thing that something artificial is, in fact, natural.
The artificiality of it all is not even denied. From the same Beverage Industry article:
“Colors help beverages by making them more visually appealing and they help identify the appearance of the beverage with the flavor,” says Jason Armao, director of colors and special ingredients for Wild Flavors, Cincinnati. “In addition, colors can be used to stimulate a customer to purchase. For example, a beverage marketed toward children or teens may be brightly colored, while a beverage marketed toward adult women may be soft and natural in appearance.”
Whatever. Bottom line is simply this: When you see “natural color” among the ingredients of a beverage, it does not mean that the color of the liquid is the natural effect of the combined colors of its raw ingredients. It means that the natural color of a foreign object — not among the ingredients — was added to enhance the color of the liquid. Artificially, of course.
UPDATE @ 9.26 p.m.
You might want to read a related blog entry in The Sassy Lawyer’s Journal.
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noemi 04.18.07 at 5:26 pm
That’s why I stopped practicing Food Technology. I couldn’t stand the artificiality of so many ingredients flushed into our drinks.
auee 04.18.07 at 5:29 pm
natawa ko dito sa post mo… Medyo unrelated but have you heard of the Ribena scandal? If not look at this
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21456644-5006009,00.html
I think you will find this really amusing. High school science project shamed a drinks giant.
feng 04.18.07 at 6:21 pm
agree with you Connie. it must have been acceptable if Robina, manufacturer of C2, simply put artificial food coloring as an ingredient.
talking of C2, i have read a similar review in a Blog. it talks naman of C2’s ingredient Tea extracts vs. Tea brewing. Her review of C2 says bottled tea drinks (which contain Tea extracts only) cannot, as they claim to be, prevent ceratins diseases and cancers ‘coz tea drinks contain a lower amount of polyphenols which supposedly is a powerful anti-oxidants that both kill and inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
you can view her entire review, should you be interested (pardon for wording the dot, slash, and dash, baka kasi Akismet would treat this comment as spam, kasi, i don’t know yet how to create a link when commenting)
itchynscratchy dot vox dot com slash library slash post slash fit dash to dash a dash tea dot html
feng 04.18.07 at 6:28 pm
Connie, i’m copy-pasting the link, hope this won’t be caught by Akismet as spam.
http://itchynscratchy.vox.com/library/post/fit-to-a-tea.html
Connie 04.18.07 at 8:19 pm
noemi, that’s one reason i don’t like soft drinks in the house. we only buy when this particular friend, who can’t eat without drowning her food with soft drinks, comes over.
auee, considering how many other “health” products GlaxoSmithKline produces, wow, how many of those do not contain what the company says they do? That’s a staggering thought.
Feng, thanks for the link. The conclusion there is something I agree with — want health benefits from tea? Buy real tea.
At least, we never had illusions about the supposed health benefits of C2. Just an alternative cold, cold drink now that it’s soooooo hot.
Which reminds me, I’m going to post an entry about the varieties of tea we have in the house…
lutchi 04.18.07 at 9:54 pm
good day ! blog hopping..v you got a very interesting blog…please visit me when u get the time.TC
princess 04.21.07 at 9:00 am
Hi, Connie,
I nominated you and Noemi to The Thinking Blogger Awards.
You can read it all in my post today.
Princess
Connie 04.21.07 at 2:49 pm
Thanks, Princess. Feels great especially considering that Pinoy Moms Network is so new. So, I nominate 5 sites too, right?
benj 04.21.07 at 6:23 pm
Natural Color… these sorts of things just leave me speechless. It’s funny without even much substantiation. haha