Pickles: Whole Foods 365, Cascadian Farm Contain Natural Flavors
Posted by admin on December 9th, 2007 at 03:18pm
Greetings, Readers,
Can you help me with this problem? I would like to find a source for Dill Pickles that meets the following criteria:
- Organic
- Do not contain natural or artificial flavors
I would like to find a source for Sweet Pickles or Sweet Pickle Relish that meets the following criteria:
- Organic
- Do not contain natural or artificial flavors
- Sweetened with cane syrup or another natural, unprocessed sugar (not sweetened with plain old table sugar)
Neither Whole Foods 365 Brand Nor Cascadian Farm Pickles Are Chemical-Free
Go to any regular supermarket in America, along the lines of Safeway or Ralph’s and you won’t see, and won’t expect to see, organic pickles. Claussen’s, Vlassic’s, etc., and the other pickles you likely remember from childhood may have tasted good to you, but they are a concoction of pesticide-laden cucumbers and bizarre chemical additives. Surely, not something you should put in your mouth.
So, you continue on down the road to your natural foods store - be it Whole Foods or another store offering organics, eager to get your hands on some human-friendly pickles to bring dash to a winter potato salad or zest to a summer sandwich. You start looking at the labels of what’s available and that sinking feeling sets in.
Whole Foods used to carry Cascadian Farm pickles before making their recent Napoleonic move of replacing most of the brand choices in their markets with their own 365 label. But, in this case, it hardly matters. Read the ingredients on Cascadian Farm’s pickles and you will see that ugly two-word phrase: natural flavors. This means chemicals from the New Jersey Turnpike that are being used to trick you and your tastebuds into thinking you’re eating a tasty food, rather than actually eating a whole, wholesome, natural food that has been prepared with care to actually taste tasty. So, Cascadian Farm’s is being dishonest, hiding behind FDA legislation that allows them to put food on market shelves without disclosing the ingredients of that food.
Next, you pick up Whole Foods 365 Brand Pickles and you have an episode of deja vu. Aping the very products they’ve replaced with their own company brand, Whole Foods is being dishonest, adding ‘natural flavors’ to their own pickles. Where, may I ask, is the value or justice in calling Whole Foods Pickles organic if they contain chemicals? Natural flavors are not organic…they are mystery meat chemicals made in a lab by white-coated scientists who will not tell you what they are putting in the jar of ‘food’ they are concocting. Natural flavors are a legal lie to you, the consumer. All you know when you see ‘natural flavors’ on a label is that the manufacturer of the product has something to hide.
And these are my two choices where I live. The 2 ‘organic’ pickles available here contain natural flavors. As a result, I’ve had no pickles in months and both my husband and I are feeling depressed. I’ve spent hours on the Internet, looking for a place to order organic pickles without chemical additives and have come up empty handed.
Can you help me? Is there an organic pickle brand where you live that doesn’t contain natural or artificial flavors? Can you read some labels in your home town and see if ANY company in the USA is actually producing wholesome pickles any more? If you can find a US company that meets my criteria, I would surely appreciate you sharing a link and ingredient list with me in the comments, below.
I did contact Whole Foods to ask them why they are putting chemicals in their pickles rather than providing a ‘whole food’ that tastes good because it’s made properly. Unfortunately, they did not respond, and this represents the 3rd inquiry I have sent to this huge corporation without receiving a reply. I used to be Whole Foods’ #1 fan, but as the years go by, I become increasingly less impressed with the Whole Foods corporation. Their success has turned them away from their original commitments and they are becoming little better than Safeway in their care for their customers’ needs or health. What a let-down!
I did not bother to contact Cascadian Farm, having attempted to have rational dealings with them last year over the fact that they punch holes in their frozen vegetable bags, allowing their food to be freezer burned and filled with industrial dirt on its way to your table. They feel this is a reasonable thing to do, and couldn’t seem to understand why I disagreed.
Unfortunately, the first step to eating well in America is to realize that the FDA does little to protect consumers from toxins and pollutants that should not be eaten. My long-term plan about the pickles is to begin to grow my own cucumbers and make my own pickles when my husband and I can afford a piece of land of our own. We’re hoping this will happen in our near future, so that we can be more self-sufficient, depending less and less on unscrupulous corporations to feed us. My mother used to make her own pickles, and believe me, they put to shame anything you’ve ever eaten out of a commercial jar. We’re working our way toward this type of self-reliance, but in the meantime, we’d surely like to know if you know of a company that makes real pickles that taste good because they’re made well. Please, do comment if you can.
Under Food Alert
9 Comments for Pickles: Whole Foods 365, Cascadian Farm Contain Natural Flavors
1. Anke | December 30th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I just bought a jar of Trader Joe’s “Organic Bread& Butter Pickles”. Haven’t tasted them yet, so can’t say whether they are good. At least they are organic and do not contain natural or artifical flavors according to the product label. Ingredients are: organic cucumbers, organic crystallized cane juice, water, organic distilled vinegar, salt, calcium chloride, organic dehydrated onions, organic dehydrated peppers, organic celery seed, organic mustard seed.
Growing your own veggies and cucumbers and making pickles yourself is always a good idea!
Thanks for all your great articles! Please, keep writing and informing people…
2. admin | December 31st, 2007 at 1:51 am
Oh wow! I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to tell us about Trader’s Joes’ pickles, Anke. We’ve got one of those stores a few towns over. You can bet we’ll be zipping over there in the next week or so to check them out.
I really, really thank you for this! It would simply be wonderful to have pickles again.
3. ronnie | January 25th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
ok the natural flavors can b101.22 (a)(3) The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means 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.” –U.S. Food and Drug Administration Web Site, excerpt from Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Volume 2, Parts 100 to 169e however the whole foods pickles are kosher and pareve which means they have NO animal substance used
4. admin | January 25th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Dear Ronnie,
Thank you so much for taking the time to post that definition. I’m sure that will help many people.
My main objection to a company like Whole Foods or any other corporation riding on the ‘Natural’ ticket is that natural flavors are neither a whole, wholesome food, nor a natural substance at all. They are used to cover bad tastes, trick human tastebuds and make up for a lack of genuine good flavor. Real, correctly prepared foods taste good on their own…no chemical additives needed.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
5. fred | February 6th, 2008 at 10:03 am
There’s a brand called True Value that our Whole Foods carries. Their dill pickles are excellent and do not contain any flavorings, colors, misc. additives., ect.
6. David Konrad | February 24th, 2008 at 6:28 am
As an organic inspector, I would like to provide the following information on the circumstances in which Natural Flavors are allowed in food labelled as organic.
The following is an excerpt from the NOP Organic Regulations which allow natural flavors to be used in food making an organic claim.
“Section 205.605 Nonagricultural (nonorganic) substances allowed as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as “organic” or “made with organic (specified ingredients or food group(s)).”
top
Flavors, nonsynthetic sources only and must not be produced using synthetic solvents and carrier systems or any artificial preservative.”
From the definition of Natural Flavoring above we see that it is called a flavoring instead of an ingredient because its purpose is taste rather than nutrition. The source has to be natural ie. plant or animal rather than synthetic. The plant or animal product used does not have to be organic. The method of getting the flavor out of the natural product cannot use synthetic solvents. So typically, they use water or organic alcohol as the medium to accept the flavor from the natural product. An finally, synthetic carrier systems are not allowed and artificial preservatives are not allowed.
Before the processor is allowed to use a flavor in a product making an organic claim, the certifying agent will evaluate the flavor to ensure it complies with the regulations. This is a rigorous process consistently applied.
Increasingly, certified organic natural flavors are available which will mean that the initial product from which the flavor is extracted will be organic.
The criticism that natural flavors in organic is adding chemicals to the food is not accurate.
7. valerie | May 6th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Hi David- thank you for this information- can you tell me if a product is not organic but lists natural flavor than is that natural flavor likely to contain a solvent used to extract the flavor?
Also when you say organic does this mean labeled usda organic? what about a products that say 70% organic and lists a natural flavor, does this mean that the natural flavor may then contain a solvent. Any insiight you could offer would be much appreciated- my daughter is chemically sensitive and we are very cautious of what we feed her- I am always concerned about natural flavors and avoid them unless it says it is an organic natural flavor- thanks Valeire
8. Ali Smith | June 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I avoid any food with “natural flavors,” period. I also am concerned about vegan products which are using the chemical flavor enhancers called “Natural flavors,” since they can be meat-based. It is a huge scam, and is making the flavorists, or flavor-producing labs a great deal of unethical profit. Why unethical? Because if the chemicals used to create the specific “Natural flavor” were disclosed, then consumers would better understand that the drink or the cereal or the bar or the juice or the tea or the yogurt, or the children’s yogurt or the ice cream or the frozen entree or the granola or the sauce or the marinade or the smoothie or the pasta sauce or the pickle or the relish or the tapenade or the truffle oil or the herb-flavored oil gets some of its “flavor” from chemicals created in laboratories by flavorists. These “natural flavors” are cheaper than adding the real peach to a peach yogurt or real maple syrup to a maple granola or real raspberry juice concentrate to a smootie drink or real herbs to an herb oil, or real orange oil to an orange soda, or real spices to pickles. The flavor industry must be very, very aggressive to have gotten their feet in the doors of most all of the natural foods manufacturers, of even baby foods! The secret is the profits are much more substantial when chemical flavor enhancement is used, since, as you say, it hides behind the blanket term “natural flavors.”
I go out of my way to avoid any product using flavor enhancement just like I avoid certain foods that are causing people to get sick. I would like to see what can be done to challenge the FDA’s acceptance of the lack of disclosure to the consumer related to the use of this nebulous term.
9. carol | August 12th, 2008 at 9:36 am
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however the whole foods pickles are kosher and pareve which means they have NO animal substance used
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This isn’t an accurate statment. Pareve just means that the item was prepared in accordance to a certain standard. The item can indeed include animal substances. Our family is Jewish, and we have many products that contain animal sources that are Pareve.
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