What DUer came up with the idea to put secretions of beavers' anal scent glands into food?
http://todayhealth.today.com/_news/2012/10/17/14489629-8-ingredients-you-never-want-to-see-on-nutrition-labels?fb_action_ids=4845285655399&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_ref=AddThis_Blogs&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%224845285655399%22%3A418377158227212}&action_type_map={%224845285655399%22%3A%22og.recommends%22}&action_ref_map={%224845285655399%22%3A%22AddThis_Blogs%22}Castoreum
Castoreum is one of the many nebulous "natural ingredients" used to flavor food. Though it isn't harmful, it is unsettling. Castoreum is a substance made from beavers' castor sacs, or anal scent glands. These glands produce potent secretions that help the animals mark their territory in the wild. In the food industry, however, 1,000 pounds of the unsavory ingredient are used annually to imbue foods--usually vanilla or raspberry flavored--with a distinctive, musky flavor.
You'll find it in: Potentially any food containing "natural ingredients"
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I buy a lot of organic or natural stuff and everything I looked at so far lists "natural flavor" in the ingredient list. How do they get the secretions? Are they keeping beavers in cages? Do they kill them? Disgusting 
I hate what they allow corporations to do here. They literally put shit in their food and don't even have to list it. And the information they provide, is hard to read. Just look at the nutrition labels and ingredient lists. Companies are supposed to use a certain font and font size, with enough space between each letter that you can actually read it. If you look at any packaging, they are making it harder and harder by using smaller fonts and leaving so little space between letters that it is impossible to read without a magnifying glass. To top it off, they sometimes print it on a background color that not that much different to the font color and it makes it even harder to read.
Let's dab a scent from whale barf?/poop? (ambergris) behind our ears, then have some desserts flavored with castoreum.
Yum.
The carmine dye was used in Central America in the 15th century for colouring fabrics and became an important export good during the colonial period. After synthetic pigments and dyes such as alizarin were invented in the late 19th century, natural-dye production gradually diminished. Health fears over artificial food additives, however, have renewed the popularity of cochineal dyes, and the increased demand has made cultivation of the insect profitable again, with Peru being the largest exporter. In Mexico, some towns in the state of Oaxaca are still working in hand-made textiles.
