These words appear on almost all food labels these days, but they are kind of meaningless. Take something like those flavoured waters, “ingredients: water, flavour”. They taste amazing, there’s definitely a bunch of ‘stuff’ in there, but they don’t tell us what it is on the label?
I thought we used to have number codes for additives and what-not that they had to disclose so we knew what was in it. Did the food labelling laws change somehow? Or are these new additives something different which can just hide behind the word ‘flavour’? Genuinely curious if anyone has some idea, there doesn’t seem to be any explanations on the food standards website…
It’s stuff like essential oils and other extracts.
Yeh I guess so, but why not just say that?
Said it in my other reply, intellectual property, Coke for example don’t want to list all the ingredients.
Sugar, rat piss and water?
Same reasons there are other similar terms like “spices”. They don’t want to give away their recipes.
The term “essential oils” is both a valid description and a marketing gimmick.
You have heard of “vanilla essence” and “orange essence”. It is basically an oil that is derived from a foodstuff to extract the essence or flavour.
Marketers love the phrase because the ignorant plebeians interpret to mean that they are required (essential) for human survival.