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Ground Turkey "with natural flavoring"

Seasoned Advice Asked on June 20, 2021

I notice that Foster Farms brand ground turkey (in Calif, USA) is actually labeled "Ground Turkey with natural flavoring". I am curious what sort of "natural flavoring" Foster Farms has added to the turkey meat. The ingredients list is no help as it just lists the two ingredients: ground turkey and natural flavoring.

This product is not sausage. It seems to be just ordinary ground up turkey meat with no visible herbal particles or spicy looking speckles, etc. Does anybody have any idea what natural flavoring this might be, and why it would be added to ground turkey?

Would salt be considered a natural flavoring? OR do you think they might add MSG?

2 Answers

Ground turkey has rosemary added as a preservative.

Effect of Commercial Rosemary Oleoresin Preparations on Ground Chicken Thigh Meat Quality Packaged in a High-Oxygen Atmosphere

I have wondered the same thing. It seems ground turkey invariably has rosemary. I thought maybe turkey had some funk that was countered by rosemary. But I could never taste the rosemary. It turns out it acts as a food preservative. I imagine that having "rosemary" on the label is more palatable to consumers than some chemical preservative name.

Correct answer by Willk on June 20, 2021

FDA Says, Natural flavor:

CFR - Code of Federal Regulations Title 21: Natural flavor

(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. Natural flavors include the natural essence or extractives obtained from plants listed in §§ 182.10, 182.20, 182.40, and 182.50 and part 184 of this chapter, and the substances listed in § 172.510 of this chapter.

A little more on "natural flavors":

Natural flavors are essentially anything you extract from a plant or animal source; in contrast to artificial flavors, which are chemicals originating in a lab.16 But despite being derived from a single natural source, the resulting natural flavor complex buyers eventually consume is far different from the derivative.17 In the end, the flavors “are mixtures of chemicals obtained by applying physical separation methods” to natural sources, and the result of a lengthy, complex process.18 Once ready for consumption, these natural flavor mixtures can contain as many as 250 chemically identified constituents, some of which are artificial and synthetic.19Natural flavors and the amalgamation of chemical constituents that comprise the ingredient can often be found on the back of products labeled as “Natural.” While there is much commentary online20 questioning the naturalness of these “natural flavors,”

Answered by Wayfaring Stranger on June 20, 2021

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