I read food labels all the time.  I've been doing it so long, it's habitual and I've developed something of a knack for it.  I can spot wheat almost instantly no matter how long the list of ingredients is.  Other foods like milk, peanuts, and corn, almost as fast.

One ingredient that's still tripping me up, however, is natural flavors. 

There's two reasons for that, one being that I only recently added it to my food blacklist, the second being that I haven't been able to fully identify it as a problem ingredient in my own mind because, well, sometimes it is an allergy problem for me, but not necessarily.

The actual definition of natural flavorings under the US Code of Federal Regulations is: “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived 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, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional” (21CFR101.22).

Additionally, to show up as "natural flavor" and not, say, "natural strawberry flavor" the flavoring has to be a combination of two or more flavor compounds. 

So a company can put just about any combination of things in their food and call it natural flavors so long as the "significant function" is to be a flavoring.  As a guy allergic to a variety of foods, what are the chances that I'm not going to be allergic to "natural flavors?"  I'd say zero, and so from here on out, I'm avoiding any food which contain "natural flavors" and would suggest others with serious allergies do the same.


Reference:
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/CF101-22.HTML

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