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this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Today I Learned (TIL)
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It’s specifically because of the ammonia, apparently? Idk I feel like I don’t want to learn more because only horrors await me.
Just don't ever look up what candies are made of. Some of the most delicious tasting foods are made from some of the most vile things.
Don't even get me started on imitation vanilla...
Imitation vinilla hasn't been made that way for decades. You almost certainly never eaten anything with it in it.
Less than 250 lbs of the stuff was consumed in the US in 1987 and it's only gone down from there.
It's actually significantly more expensive than sythensized alternatives like vanillin since there is basically no commercial beaver trapping anymore.
Decades before this was something I could scare the girls in food class with, it was already not true.
Is it bugs? I bet it's bugs.
The vast majority is synthesized. Often from a wood byproduct.
They were probably referring to the old "it's made from beaver anuses" joke. Where in reality castoreum is extracted from an organ under skin near the tail. And is still used in very small amounts in some applications.
Every time we have this clarification, I imagine a scientist in a lab coat holding a beaver up by the tail, and pointing out the spot near the anus, which is not the anus.
But to anyone standing near by, they're still just effectively pointing out the beaver's anus.
I get that the myth is wrong, but the reality isn't enough better to be comforting.
It used to be made from beaver "secretions" whatever that might mean, not anymore but still.
You're talking about Castroreum. Basically beaver "musk". Which honesty not that weird. If you want weird, be weary of any deep red food that claims natural coloring
It is not beaver anal secretions.