It’s apparently a whole lot of fun to try to get a straight answer out of Tropicana as to what “natural flavors” are in their 100% juice.
Reader Kristina says:
What follows is a conversation between myself (me) and the customer service (CS) representative from Tropicana. (I called their 1.877.342.1813 number around 9:30 am, EST on 5 September 2008):
me: Hi, I am calling to ask about one of your ingredients listed in one of your products.
CS: Ok, go ahead.
me: the label on your juice product says its 100% juice but lists “natural flavors, ingredient not found in regular orange juice.” Could you please let me know what, besides juice, is in your product?
CS: It’s natural flavors, natural flavors come from anything in nature.
me: Can you please tell me what the specific “natural flavors” are that are added to your orange juice?
CS: Natural flavors can be anything from nature.
me: OK, but if it says “100% juice” doesn’t that have to mean that the natural flavors are from another source of juice?
CS: No, its from anything in nature, it could be from dairy.
me: Dairy? But can’t it NOT be from dairy, because it says 100% juice?!
CS: Well, its not from dairy, because dairy is a top 8 allergen and we would have to list that on the label, but I am saying it COULD be from dairy.
me: Can you please divulge what that said ingredient is?
CS: The product you have is from concentrate, any drink from concentrate has natural flavors.
me: I understand this, but what I am asking is WHAT are the natural flavors added to this specific beverage?
*** More back and forth, but ultimately getting her to understand why I was asking the question (re: food sensitivities)
me: Well I would urge your company to list all ingredients and not hide behind all encompassing terms such as “natural flavors” so that your consumers can know exactly what is in your products. I picked up your bottle of juice thinking it was safe because it listed “100% juice” on its label and now you are giving me *possible* contradictory information.
CS: Let me send you out a coupon for our Pure Premium line of juices that are not from concentrate and 100% juice.
Hmm. Maybe they think dairy is “cow juice?”
(Photo: Bonzo McGrue )
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This is sort of like the term ‘spices’ in the ingredients lists. From what I have read, ‘spices’ can even include things that are low-level addictive. Sort of the way caffeine is low-level addictive. Might be why people keep buying Pringles.
I try to be as healthy as possible about the food I buy, and tend to steer away from products that have ‘natural flavorings’ ‘spices’ and laundry lists of chemical names in place of normal food names.
Things like this always remind me of something one of my dad’s friends mentioned after studying the ingredients list (the guy is a chemist) that the butter substitute we used was a molecule off of plastic. That was what started my ingredients watching. (Pretty sure it was “I can’t believe it’s not Butter”, but I may be wrong there.)
While traveling, I bought this product and after tasting it realized that it was NOT 100 percent OJ. That is when I found the cryptic ingredient listing and became concerned. Because of some medication I am taking, I am supposed to avoid grapefruit and grapefruit juice or flavoring which could cause an adverse reaction (some of these have resulted in death). There is no way to tell from the label if one of the concentrates or added ingredients contains grapefruit juice, extract, flavoring or what have you. Not a top 8 allergen, but potentially deadly nonetheless. I felt a little faint after taking a swig of this concoction, but that was probably a mild panic attack from discovering I had no real clue what I’d just poured down my throat. Caveat emptor for sure.
I just called Tropicana, and was reassured that there is nothing besides orange fruit in the “natural flavor.” The representative said it could be the skin or pulp of the orange. That settled my nerves until I thought about all the chemicals and food coloring that was probably sprayed on the skins of these oranges.