..a beaver's ass to be more precise.
I know, I know, some of you are saying that you can't properly eat a beaver without eating a little ass. That's a different tutorial I will defer to someone else as I am semi-retired on that front. "Taking sand to the beach..." and all that.

No, what I am talking about is castoreum. It's a flavoring derived from gland near the anus of beavers. Supposedly tastes like raspberries. I hate raspberries so I don't now. Raspberries and the associated flavoring tastes like soap to me. I know this sounds strange but it does. What is even stranger is that my favorite candy is Swedish Fish...which have a raspberry flavor to them.

I only am on the subject of castoreum today because yesterday the subject came up in conversation and I continue to be amazed in this internet age, that so many people don't know about this stuff. I had planned to talk about fish but this subject seemed a bit more light hearted, so I figured I would give it a go.

Now, you can all individually search the 'net for info on castoreum. I won't bore you with the varied opinions and information on the subject. After spending a bit of time trying to update myself and fact check some things I thought I already knew, I realized that the internet is just as good as confusing someone as it is at educating. Castoreum is an accepted form of flavoring. That is true, to be sure.

I bring up this subject because of what I consider to be the insidious way that the food industry continues to manipulate the lexicon of food terms to suit their commercial (profits) goal, transparency be damned. Just the way I described "natural" peanut butter being anything but peanut butter in its natural state, castoreum is considered and labeled as a "natural" flavoring. So if you pop open a tub of Ben and Jerry's and "natural raspberry flavoring" is listed in the ingredient, yours and everyone's normal conclusion is that this flavor comes from raspberries, naturally. It may very well not be true.
"Natural", perhaps, but "raspberry"? My ass! Rather a beaver's ass.

Is there anything wrong with this? I don't think so. It is each person's responsibility to know what they put into their bodies. I don't subscribe to the idea that smokers in the '50s and '60s didn't know that they were poisoning themselves and that "had they known"...
I think based on the reigning success of the tobacco industry, we know that simply isn't true.
Apply this same logic to foods, processed foods, and you should begin to understand that if 'we are what we eat", then it is our individual responsibility to investigate and cut through the bullshit being fed to us by the mass producers of processed foods. (pun intended).

Now, how many of you sick bastards are going to talk about eating beaver and ass when slurping down an ice cream cone in mixed company?



**I took some artistic/literary license with this. As a zoologist/scientist, I should be appalled at my own inaccuracies but again, just trying to have fun with this one.***