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February 18, 2012 By Natalie 11 Comments

Foods Containing Beaver Anal Glands: Don’t Ask!

A while back I wrote about the presence of hair, beetles and beaver anal glands in the foods we eat. Of the three, beaver anal glands, a whiffy combo of glands and urine that beavers use to mark their territory, captured by far the biggest share of people’s attention. Since then numerous search queries have hit my blog seeking a list of specific foods containing these glands, which are ground up into a product known as castoreum used in raspberry, strawberry and, most often, in vanilla flavoring.

As it happens no up to date consumer list of specific foods containing castoreum exists anywhere. Why? Well to start out, would you buy a food product if you knew it contained beaver anal glands? These glands are not exactly anyone’s idea of a heavenly nosh. Anticipating this, the food industry managed to get castoreum added to foods under that innocuous, legal and sometimes not so innocent label: “natural flavoring”. So even if castoreum IS present in foods and beverages like ice cream, yogurt and soda, you and I will never know it. Nor will any food manufacture divulge this info if you contact them(why nix sales?). They will inform you that THEY never add castoreum to their foods and beverages. If pressed, they will probably add they can’t of course speak for their vendors, who supply them with flavorings containing ingredients that are proprietary information.

After Jamie Oliver, a British chef with a large following, appeared on the David Letterman Show last year and mentioned that vanilla ice cream was made with castoreum, the Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) contacted 5 manufactures of vanilla flavoring to ask if there was any truth to this statement. All five manufacturers said no, that castoreum is not used today in any form of vanilla for human use.

On the other hand, Fenaroli’s handbook of flavor ingredients (a $340 industry eBook) published in 2005, provides a list of reported foods and beverages containing castoreum extract:

Reported Uses PPM (parts per million) (Fema* 1994):

Food CategoryUsualMax
Alcoholic Beverages79.5993.69
Baked Goods62.2868.47
Gelatins, Puddings43.5847.34
Soft Candy37.2844.10
Frozen Dairy24.3926.26
Nonalcoholic Beverages24.2129.77
Hard Candy24.1724.17
Chewing Gum18.6042.09

So what are we to believe? Are beaver anal glands still being used to flavor foods and beverages or not? And If so, how much and which foods? How about it, Food Industry?

*Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association

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Natalie

Filed Under: Food

Comments

  1. Los says

    October 28, 2019 at 10:57 pm

    This shit gross!!!!!!!

    Reply
  2. Caroline M Harrington says

    January 4, 2020 at 7:12 pm

    This should be banned for human consumption. Period.

    Reply
    • Sarah says

      August 14, 2021 at 3:08 pm

      amen to that!!!

      Reply
  3. Joshua Farmer says

    May 24, 2020 at 7:15 pm

    Eating and exploitation of innocent beings is the most tyranically malevolent ideology in human history….bar none!
    Live vegan!!!

    Reply
    • Mike says

      November 6, 2020 at 10:41 pm

      Or maybe it’s Partial Birth Abortion.

      Reply
  4. Terri says

    July 31, 2020 at 10:24 am

    That sounds terrible! I’m a vegetarian. It breaks my heart about all of the babies. I was just wondering if it’s obtained from a live beaver?

    Reply
  5. Ryan says

    August 29, 2020 at 9:30 am

    They don’t use the actual glands, nothing it makes it any better but it’s not actually part of the beavers body. They use the secretion from the beavers glands, not the actual gland. And it’s their castor glands not the actual anal glands that description comes from.

    Reply
  6. Q says

    November 10, 2020 at 2:55 am

    That just goes to show you what the government you vote for every 4 years care about you. People will never stand up to these guys and they know it. They’re the queen ant and we’re the working ants. Without us they’re nothing and still the citizens of this country are to coward to do anything about it. Laziness and cowardly

    Reply
  7. Q says

    November 10, 2020 at 3:01 am

    The left try’s to weaken the citizens to stay in control. The democratic FDA feeds you much worse than beavers ass rest assure. At least beavers ass glands are some kind of natural product I guess. There’s products been proven to, over time, kill people and the FDA won’t ban it due to the money these companies bring in

    Reply
  8. Yeehaw says

    August 28, 2021 at 5:10 am

    If they kill him where’s all the beaver meat? Tasty tasty Beaver meat on a stick?

    Reply
  9. Beaver Man says

    September 14, 2021 at 9:40 pm

    Considering the list of foods and beverages being claimed to contain the extract of undomesticated, carnivorous animals there must be an enormous clandestine industry thriving in forests near dammed streams which employs beaver wranglers canvassing beaver habitat everywhere!

    Reply

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