drink wholesome is the best protein powder without natural flavors.
What are natural flavors?
Everyone seems to agree that artificial flavors are not healthy, which explains why packaged food companies go out of their way to remind you that they do not use artificial flavors. The average consumer does not seem to mind that all of these same companies use natural flavors, however, which hardly makes sense.
Whereas food manufacturers are required to disclose their ingredients, flavor manufacturers are not. They can add synthetic solvents, preservatives, and carriers to a flavor that qualifies as “natural” under current regulations. The term “natural flavor” is therefore little more than a catch-all term for everything that a manufacturer would rather not spell out on the ingredient list.
In a 2019 interview with the New York Times, a scientist at the Environmental Working Group stated, “there does not seem to be much of a difference between natural and artificial flavors.” He was right. Just look at how the U.S Food & Drug Administration (FDA) defines a natural flavor:
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.
Not only do many natural flavors contain artificial additives, but they are also so processed that they look nothing like real foods.
Real foods can be found in nature. Natural flavors cannot. Manufacturers use them, instead of real foods, because doing so much cheaper. The real cost, however, is passed on to the consumer.
Because natural flavors look nothing like real foods, they are hard to digest. For people with sensitive stomachs and gut issues, this can cause side effects like bloating, constipation, diarrhea, flatulence, and stomach pain. Basically, because natural flavors cannot be broken down, they sit in your gut for longer than food should. This either causes your gut to pull in water, resulting in diarrhea, or feeds your gut bacteria, which produce gas. Excessive gas can cause bloating, flatulence, stomach pain, and can even hinder the movement of food through the colon, resulting in constipation.
Eating small amounts of natural flavors does not bother most people, but additives like natural flavors can add up quickly, especially if you drink a protein shake every day. It follows that consistently consuming natural flavors can disrupt regulatory pathways within the intestines, contributing to the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other systemic inflammatory disorders. Natural flavors can also disturb the delicate balance of the gut microbiome. – the collection of microorganisms that help you digest food. This can lead to long term gut health issues.