This is a new segment inspired by Sam, Lunchbox and Dylan (and Hansol, too!)

I was at work and just happily working away when I heard someone call my name.

“Hey, Meggan! Is this vegan?”

I turned around to see who was asking me and assumed it to be the beginning of a joke, like perhaps they were holding up a picture of a dog licking another dogs butt. But there sat a group of my favorites, looking bright eyed and oh-s0-innocent holding up a can of Kern’s nectar or Goldfish pretzels or lollipops or some other random food item.

“Let me see the ingredients,” I replied.

After examining the slightly disturbing list, I paused, deliberating over how exactly to deliver my answer.

“Well…. it is technically vegan, but I still wouldn’t eat it.”

“What? Why? Is it because it’s not organic?”

“Yes… But also mostly because of these 2 words: natural flavors.”

Dude, natural flavors are far from natural. Those 2 words can contain 28 or more different chemicals, compounds and fragrances.

“A natural flavor,” says Terry Acree, a professor of food science at Cornell University, “is a flavor that’s been derived with an out-of-date technology.” Natural flavors and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods. Amyl acetate, for example, provides the dominant note of banana flavor. When it is distilled from bananas with a solvent, amyl acetate is a natural flavor. When it is produced by mixing vinegar with amyl alcohol and adding sulfuric acid as a catalyst, amyl acetate is an artificial flavor. Either way it smells and tastes the same….
A natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor — benzaldehyde — is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison…. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature.
-Eric Schlosser, in his book Fast Food Nation.

Either way… Eating something that has added flavoring, “natural” or otherwise, indicates you are eating a highly processed food…. Which as a level 10 vegan, I just can’t do.