What is Up With Labelling Laws Anyway???

The definition of natural flavour under the Code of Federal Regulations is: “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” (21CFR101.22)

So what does this mean?  I have read the above statement over many many times and to me it seems that if a flavouring ingredient can be isolated from any plant or animal in any way it can be called a natural flavour.  It seems that any isolated chemical or ingredients that can be derived from fermentation would also qualify.  This doesn’t mean these ingredients are necessarily bad… but they CAN be.  The problem is often that they are labeled under this umbrella term and we just have no way of knowing short of phoning up every single company we purchase food from and asking them directly.

My journey with “natural flavours” started when I realized that the “natural and artificial flavours” in my herbal tea were not serving me. That’s right, herbal tea. In Vancouver we have some amazing tea stores. Let’s call them Smeevana and Smavid’s Tea.  Reading the ingredients on their websites I found that there were very few if any teas that did not contain “natural flavours”.  When I inquired about the addition of these flavours I found out that they were responsible for most of the taste of the herbal tea blends.  These boutique stores offer really exciting flavours that take you on a sleigh ride or to a tropical paradise and none of that flavour is really derived from the pieces of coconut or cacao nibs in the tea blend.  One representative said that they could not make their teas without “natural flavours” and I believe they are right.  I certainly think herbal tea, even with natural flavours, is a big improvement over coffee or coca cola but we are each in our own place making improvements from where we stand today.

What did I do?? I set out to make my own tea of course. I knew rooibos had a taste, peppermint, lavender, orange peels… with so many flavourful herbs to choose from certainly I could make some tea and take myself on a Tea-cation if these big stores couldn’t help me. While I love the taste of peppermint I discovered there were not many other herbs that would really make the tea taste strong enough AND I was not able to achieve the layers of flavour that they could with their “natural flavours”. Naturally (puns always intended) I was distraught. There is only so much Hibiscus a girl can drink. This is when I started adding essential oils and extracts to my teas although it certainly isn’t necessary… Really helped with the withdrawal from Smeevana which has now gone out of business 🙁

At the same time as my tea experiments were taking place I was participating in some other experiments. We were working on developing a kids’ yogurt. We wanted it nut free for schools, balanced in omega 3 and 6 fats and featuring cool colours and flavours for kids.  I started experimenting with essential oils and Medicine Flower extracts along with freeze dried fruits.  We had to use the freeze dried stuff so that we wouldn’t have to pulverize and cook the fresh fruit to death.  I thought I had come up with something really great. When I approached my partner with the recipe he came back with the worst news ever: If we were going to use pure extracts or essential oils in our products…. WE WOULD HAVE TO LABEL THEM “NATURAL FLAVOURS”!!! We are literally still trying to figure out whether we could put “natural flavours (essential oil of …)”, whether we would get in trouble and whether there is enough room on the label. These ingredient words on labels are seriously tightly monitored, like the nutrition facts, and it’s not usually in our favour as consumers.

Working up a bit of a sweat writing this…

How could something as fantastic as orange essential oil be lumped under the same overarching umbrella category as:

Aspartame
MSG
Beaver anal secretions
Other animal products

So now I ask for your help: I don’t have time to phone every single company, every single tea store and manufacturer of energy bars. Truthfully I don’t really eat stuff in packages. But I do think we all have a right to know. Let us courageously phone people up and ask them “what exactly are you using for natural flavours?” and make our buying decisions accordingly.  Let’s support companies using CO2 extracts as natural flavours and unsupport companies using beaver butt?

If you know something whether it be good bad or ugly, post it in the comments below so we can make choices together.

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All right, I confess… I’m not that good at following recipes. My creative spirit takes over and I just totally go into my own ideas.  I used to prepare food with so much discipline and now that I have broken free I am at the opposite end of the spectrum.  Still trying to find balance.  Not my forte.  

Learning how to substitute ingredients has really helped me not to mess UP the recipes while messing WITH them.  Since we are all individuals with preferences and physical and emotional needs it is my hope that you will substitute ingredients in my recipes (and all recipes) with what you have on hand or what you like best.

The ingredients in recipes are usually included for one of four reasons: Taste, texture, function and the thrill.

Taste
Ingredients might be included in a recipe because of their salty, sweet, sour or fatty flavour. Salty ingredients include miso, braggs, tamari, nama shoyu, Himalayan or sea salt, Umeboshi plum, kelp powder or other seaweeds. Some fermented foods not mentioned in this list also provide some natural salts.

These ingredients can all be substituted for each other. One that comes up quite often is the kelp powder. I like to add this to recipes and you may not have it in your kitchen as an everyday ingredient. So that you don’t have to go shopping online every time you want to make a fancy recipe try substituting one of the other salty ingredients.

Sweet ingredients are… sweet! They may include stevia, coconut nectar, organic sugar, agave or Luo Han Guo to name a few. This can be a bit trickier because some sweet things are sweeter than others but you can always substitute one for another as long as you are tasting. For example I don’t like to use Agave. When I see this in a recipe I read “Yacon” or “Stevia and water” or “Luo Han syrup”. You can also use whole foods like dates or bananas to sweeten and then you won’t be using as many processed ingredients if that is your goal. You can make up for lost liquid in a recipe after substituting sweeteners by adding water to make up the difference. Do not be afraid to substitute sweeteners even though it may change the recipe. You will totally have success.

Sour ingredients include lemon, lime, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, tomatoes and some fermented foods like sauerkraut yogurt and kimchi. Substituting one for another may change the flavour of your recipe but can be done really well. I prefer to use lemons and limes to using vinegars unless it is really important in a recipe and find swapping these out to be pretty harmless and easy!

Texture
Maybe chopped walnuts, onions or celery are added to a recipe to provide some crunchiness and a certain feel to a recipe. Replace crunchy ingredients with other crunchy ingredients, smooth with smooth and so on.

Some ingredients add fats to recipes which changes the mouthfeel.  Fats may come as oils or butters.  One question that comes up often is whether coconut oil and coconut butter are interchangeable.  I think butters are interchangeable with other butters most of the time.  Coconut butter is made out of the whole coconut meat just like almond butter is made from whole almonds.  It does not become liquid when melted. I love coconut butter.  It is one of my indulgences…. So when I run out I know I can substitute almond butter, hazelnut butter, sunflower butter or even avocado in a recipe depending on the flavour that I want.  The only oils I have on hand with any sort of regularity are hemp, flax and coconut so depending on which flavour I am ok with I exchange those for whatever the recipe calls for.

Function
Ingredients may have a function in the recipe or a function in our bodies.  If an ingredient has a function in a recipe it may be to add moisture, to bind ingredients, to emulsify, thicken or to stabilize for example. Some examples of binders that may be included in whole foods plant based recipes are bananas, chia seeds, flax gel and psyllium. Some binders in cooked recipes may be eggs, xanthan gum or flax gel. An emulsifier might be mustard powder or sunflower lecithin. Psyllium, goji and chia can be thickeners and irish moss, chia and psyllium can be gelling ingredients. I often just ask “which ingredients are keeping this sauce/cake/dressing/pudding together?” before I start removing and replacing.

If an ingredient has a function in our bodies it may be adding a certain nutrient to a recipe or it may be a “functional food” or “tonic herb” like reishi, ginseng or even goji berries. Maybe you don’t want that function but you want another. Usually herbs can be swapped out in elixirs and other recipes to customize them for your needs.  Some herbs are still out of my budget 🙂 so I make do with what I have and get creative or leave herbal ingredients out.  I remember the first elixir I ever made left me feeling mugged after spending 400 dollars at the Longevity Warehouse. Oops.

So before replacing an ingredient, identify its recipe and nutritional function.

Thrill
Recipes usually have a couple of stars that make the recipe unique and exciting. This may be garlic, shallots, figs, any herb or perhaps an exotic spice blend. Figuring out the star players in the recipe and replacing them with alternates can result in a whole new and maybe better recipe that really feels like your own. Take a peppermint chocolate cheesecake and make it pumpkin spice or take a mango coconut smoothie and turn it into a cherry almond smoothie (yum).  Of course if you are using someone else’s recipe, always credit the source.  That doesn’t discredit you.  We lift each other.

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A good friend mentioned to me this week that she is struggling to maintain her healthy eating habits and continue her active social life.  She is single, high energy and likes to go out dancing with friends.  She finds that most of the social events she attends are centred around food and drinks, leaving her to face this challenge frequently. I get it.  You want to go out for dinner and not have the entire conversation revolve around what you are/aren’t eating.

I have put together five coping strategies for maintaining a healthy diet and social life.

Strategy number one:  Have a big why.  Know why you are eating what you are eating instead of something that you may have been eating in the past, maybe even in the recent past.  When you really know why you will not waver but your “why” has to be real and it has to be connected to your truest core self.  My big why was that I wanted to be able to hug my son without having it hurt my fingers and arms as he was just a baby.  Fitting into the little black dress may not be a big enough why but having the confidence to go out in that dress and have the opportunity to meet someone new may be.

Ask yourself “what is the cost to me this year, in the next year, five years from now if I do not commit to following through and taking care of myself”. It is also important to have a big why for hanging out with those friends.  As you go through any transition that makes people uncomfortable they may act out in wacky ways.  It is at these times that you can hold on to why you love them so that you can weather this transition together, give them room to get comfortable with the new you and move into a healthier relationship.

Strategy number two:  Be prepared. Carry salad toppers, herbal tea, a lemon or some bars in your bag. Order something off the menu that you can live with or modify.  Remember it is about the company and not about the food.  You can even call ahead to many venues and they will appreciate having the heads-up to prepare food for you ahead of time.  If you are uncomfortable asking for special treatment you can bring a “special diet” card with you to avoid the discussion at the table. There is usually some combination of menu items that can be put together to create a masterpiece for you.  That being said over the past twenty-two years I have been to 5 or 6 dinners where there was literally not a thing I could eat.  This is when the protein bars came in handy.  It happened to me twice in China, once in Vegas and twice in Turkey.  I remember someone offering me a plain bun with lettuce from Macdonalds once while I was on a tour bus.  They laughed and called it a vegan dinner.  Ok that one really got to me.

Strategy number three:  Share.  Bring something fabulous and share it with your friends. This will make sure that you are well fed, emotionally and physically.  I often choose to bring a dessert because I know it will always be a big hit, I can have salad for the main meal and then I won’t lament not being able to eat the birthday cake or pie.

Strategy number four:  Find your voice, value yourself.  I have always run from confrontation. I often would rather blend in. The main times where I have made food mistakes over the past 22 years have been when a stranger offered me something and I didn’t want to make them feel uncomfortable.  This happened several times when I was a server, once in Asia and once when someone didn’t remember the gluten thing and baked me a birthday cake.  After eating the cake my gums and digestive system were swollen for weeks. I realize now that I can just say no right away and I don’t even have to tell them why.

It can be more awkward with close friends but when I explain that I have been working on taking care of myself they really do want to help or they simply make jokes like “more cake for me”.  Finding my voice around food has also helped me to find my voice in other areas of my life that may not have been serving me.  Does this affect you too? Does it ring any bells?

Strategy number five:  Treat information about your diet as a precious gift that your friends must wait to unwrap.  Wait until they ask you “what’s your secret?” before you tell them.  One of the worst times to tell everyone about your new eating habits is when they are all chowing down on something that is pretty much the exact opposite of what you recommend.  This can be difficult but does ensure that people hear what they are ready to hear and remain curious about your food rather than defensive, as defensive can be painful.

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Depression, being invisible and often shameful is not something that we often seek help with or seek to understand. It is not something that we talk about. Having been familiar with the darker side I have great empathy and understanding for this.  Having watched many of my family and loved ones struggle with depression right before my eyes and not having the knowledge or communication skills necessary to help them it is my hope that through this work I can help just one person that is a member of someone else’s family.  With almost 10 percent, yes 10 percent of Americans (don’t have any other statistics) on antidepressants this is becoming an elephant in every room.

Depression is a complicated issue. There are genetic and situational components that are not completely within our control at times and there are biochemical factors that ARE within our control. There are many nutritional factors effecting our biochemistry but I will focus in this article on the three that are the most connected to digestion. Digestion can be a stress, raising our cortisol levels and preventing us from thinking clearly and depleting our other hormones. Low stomach acid can lead to malabsorption of amino acids, leaving us without the building blocks necessary for the production of neurotransmitters. Low stomach acid can also leave us low on zinc which can lead to depression.

Digestive Stress

When I think of stress I usually think of the grind, parenting, cleaning toilets, money, relationships and more things in the external world. I rarely think of physical activities and digestive stress as “stress” however these are some of the most common stressors that we encounter in our environment. Just as our bodies respond to chronic ongoing worldly stress through raising our cortisol levels we also raise our cortisol levels just the same to respond to digestive stress. Cheetos and coffee cause digestive stress. Our bodies raise cortisol as a result. I am in no way saying not to eat these things here but it is good to know what is going on.

Cortisol has the ability to interfere with our neurotransmitters, preventing their communication with each other and making their quantities lower.  Have you ever been sitting in a test or exam and suddenly had your brain erase?  Have you done any public speaking and experienced getting really stupid and scared at the same time?  Our hormones don’t really know whether we are running from a tiger or dealing with a stressful situation at work.  Our bodies simply know that we don’t need our higher brain function when there is some kind of emergency going on so our IQ is of a way lower priority than saving our butts. Over time cortisol can actually cause damage to the prefrontal cortex, leading us to walk into rooms and ask “why am I here” or drive to work and ask “how did I get here?” I’m here to tell you we can reduce our senior’s moments by reducing our stress including our digestive stress.

Raised cortisol levels over time will lead to reduced pregnenalone, the precursor to DHEA (the anti-aging hormone) and reproductive hormones leading to more pronounced and compounded symptoms of fatigue and lethargy.  Someone may be diagnosed with depression but these hormone cascades may not have been looked into.

Malabsorption of Amino Acids

Proteins rely on our stomach acid to break them down into their constituent parts, amino acids. As we age our stomach acid does decline naturally and it also declines as an adaptive response to a diet high in acidic liquids such as soda and empty calorie foods that leave us without the nutrients necessary to create stomach acid well. Different foods are digested differently in our mouths and stomachs. The proteins after chewing, need our stomach acid and pancreatic enzymes to be healthy in order to be broken down to amino acids well. Amino acids are used in our bodies for enzyme production, cellular energy, red blood cell production, neurotransmitter and hormone production as well as many many other functions. Muscle building is only one small but important function of these amino acids.

Two amino acids particularly important for healthy mood are tyrosine and tryptophan. Tyrosine is an important precursor for dopamine. Dopamine plays an important part in our moods, broadcasting joyfulness and reward even including sexual enjoyment.  Dopamine also affects cognition and motor control.  ADHD, Parkinson’s Disease, Schitzophrenia and of course depression have been linked to altered levels of dopamine in the body.  Without tyrosine we just can’t make dopamine.   Period.  There are many animal-based sources of tyrosine. The highest sources of tyrosine on a vegan or plant-based diet are spirulina, mustard greens, pumpkin leaf, nori and soy.  I do not really do soy much, at least unfermented and I don’t seem to eat pumpkin leaf very often (do you?) but spirulina and some of the mustards like arugula are a daily part of my diet.  I also snack on raw nori (not the sheets, the actual crinkly dried straight seaweed) but have been told I’m crazy.  If these foods seem wacky to you fortunately sesame, spinach, avocado and oranges also contain this amino acid.

Tyrosine is a non-essential amino acid which just means that we still need it but we can also make it from phenylalanine, which is an “essential” amino acid. If you are really trying to change your mood it might be better to go for both. If you can digest and absorb them that would be optimal!  Pineapple, apples, parsley, spinach and tomatoes are good sources of phenylalanine but for something even better look to nettle and the phytoplanktons.

Low levels of tyrosine can also be harmful to the thyroid as tyrosine is required to make thyroid hormones. Often thyroid conditions, other conditions of the brain and hormones and depression are mistaken for one another.  They are in fact intricately entwined through these amino acids.

Malabsorption of Zinc

Zinc is one of those vicious cycle minerals. It is important for the production of stomach acid and it cannot be absorbed without adequate stomach acid.  Low levels of zinc can lead to feelings of helplessness along with a mixed bag of emotions such as fear, anxiety, frustration and anger.  These feelings can be associated with high levels of copper in the body which can actually be caused by zinc deficiency too.  If a zinc deficiency is connected with low stomach acid it can continue to get worse and worse until the vicious cycle is broken.

Some good plant based sources of zinc include chia, sesame, sprouted chick peas and lentils, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, pecans, pumpkin seeds, garlic, CHLORELLA and chocolate.

Consider this: Antidepressants can inhibit zinc absorption.

What to Do

Eat good food, the foods listed above among any other sources of tyrosine, phenylalanine and zinc, as a part of a diverse plant based diet and make sure we digest and absorb these foods as well as we can.

We will not eat crap.  We will pay attention to and care for our digestion so we can absorb what we eat.  If you are on anti-depressants please do not jump off of them as a result of reading this article but work with your physician and a team including a functional nutrition practitioner to reach your goals.  Remember the point about antidepressants depleting zinc, this is important.

This article represents only some of the pieces of the puzzle regarding this topic.  Good foods and nutrition can improve all of our lives and are a start.  Want to know more?  Let’s talk.

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