Take a quick perusal of any random food label, you'll likely read, sugar, salt and other common ingredients. Keep reading and you'll come across "natural flavors." Most people assume this ingredient is what it suggests, but I find this a little ambiguous. What exactly is natural flavor, and more importantly, why is it on every food label?

The Code of Federal Regulations defines natural flavors as, "“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."

After more research, I found that natural flavor is a blanket term and could actually be anything, from castoreum, a bitter oily secretion found between the anus and external genitals of beavers, used as vanilla flavoring in candies and baked goods, to various insects. Basically, natural flavor refers to any ingredient not directly made by humans.

“Natural and artificial flavors play an interesting role in food. They’re essentially providing the taste and often they’re added to make the food more appealing, or to potentially replace something that’s lost through processing, storage or in some cases even from pasteurizing,” says David Andrews, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group.

Pinning down what natural flavors are is no easy task, results found online are often vague and open ended, which leads to confusion. It seems as if no one truly knows what the ingredient is. Eating food is vital to our existence and yet, there are ingredients like natural flavors, that are shrouded in mystery.

Many results state that natural flavoring is used to enhance the flavors of foods we eat everyday, but is it safe, and does consuming it regularly, have long-term health effects?

"The amount of preservatives and solvents in natural flavors is too small to be linked to any ill health effects, Andrews notes. But, it still creates confusion, and may be leading consumers astray. “There’s the general fact of transparency, it’s hard to know what’s in these ingredient mixtures,” he says.

Although, natural flavors are not harmful, Andrews advises sticking to a whole foods diet when you can.