In September 2013 , popular blogger “ The Food Babe ” released a video proclaiming that beavers “ flavor atonof foods at the grocery depot with their littlebutthole ! ” Since then , the net has been crowded with alarmist posts saying that beaver ’s butts are used to season everything from indulgent swallow to vanilla ice emollient . The culprit behind this scare is a flavorant call castoreum — but what on the nose is it , and is it deserving all the bicker ?
What is castoreum?
Castoreum is a substancesecreted bymale and female Alaskan , Canadian , and Siberianbeaversfrom pouchlike sacs located near the base of their tails ( castoris the Holy Writ for beaver in Latin ) . silk hat ca n’t see or hear very well , but they have a bang-up good sense of feel — and as a result of their castoreum glands , they also smell out great . They use their castoreum in part tomark their territory , secreting it on top of mounds of malicious gossip they manufacture on the edges of their home turf . ( The castoreum force out out is apparently so loud , you’re able to discover itif you ’re standing nearby . ) Beavers also use the fatty , waxy secretion towaterproof their fur .
An odorous combination of vanilla extract and raspberry with flowered touch , castoreum carries info about a beaver fur ’s health and helps to make distinction between menage members and outsiders . opera hat are so interested in the smell that historically , fur trappers would bait traps with castoreum .
Castoreum History
When castoreum is fresh , it ’s a fluid that ranges in color from yellow and milky to grey and unenviable , depending on the type of beaver and its gender . In a resilient fauna , this fluid is milked and dried to a solid for perfume making . In a dead beast , the entire castoreum gland is removed and , traditionally , preserved by smoke it over a Natalie Wood fire .
For much of its history , castoreum was used as a music . Roman womeninhaled the fumes of castoreum burned in lamp because they believed it would rush abortions ( it didn’t).Hildegard von Bingen , a twelfth - century Benedictine abbess , mystical , and bookman , wrote thatpowdered beaver “ testicles ” drunk in wine-colored would reduce a fever ( the castoreum gland , when dried , is easy mistaken for testes ) . Castoreum has also been used to treat headaches , which makes sense pass on that it contains salicylic pane , the main ingredient in aspirin .
The settlement of America guide into an gain in the availableness of beaver pelt , which were used to make fine hats all over Europe , and to a resurgence of interest in castoreum as medicinal drug . sell in pharmacy and pharmacies , itwas recommendedfor earaches , toothaches , colic , urarthritis , stimulate nap , preventing sleep , and general strengthening of the psyche . It was also in the nineteenth century that the substance began to be used in the perfume industry as a fixative — an ingredient that makes other scents smell out better and last longer .
By the ending of the 19th century , the demand for pelts and castoreum was so great that North American beavers were on the edge of extermination . In 1894 , a representative of the Hudson Bay Company , a major dress hat skin and castoreum trading firm , say : “ The castor ’s Clarence Day are count . He can not coexist with civilisation . ”
Is castoreum still being used today?
According toThe Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets , castoreum was first used as a food additive in the other 20th century , but is now rarely , if ever , used in the mass - bring about flavor manufacture . Nevertheless , the FDA considers it a “ raw flavor , ” since it is come from a raw source , and can be used to add fruity strawberry or raspberry notes , or as stand-in for vanilla extract ( the compounds amount from the beaver ’s diet of barque and leaves ) . One of the few places it ’s reliably find is the Swedish schnappsBVR HJT .
Beavers are generally no longer hunted for their skin or castoreum ; to acquire the sticky clobber , humans must anesthetize beavers and milk the castoreum gland . The process was described as “ pretty gross ” byJoanne Crawford , a wildlife ecologist at Southern Illinois University who is no stranger to beaver tail ; she take down that the goo has a consistency slightly like molasses . Due to the inconvenience and expense of harvesting castoreum from springy beaver , the substance is now seldom used . According toFenaroli ’s Handbook of Flavor Ingredients , the one-year diligence consumption is very low — around 300 pounds — whereas the consumption of natural vanillin is over 2.6 million pounds annually . When castoreum is used , it ’s far more likely to be in the profitable fragrance industry rather than in the foods we deplete .
“ In the flavor industry , you need tons and tons of fabric to work with , ” smell pharmacist Gary Reinecciustold NPR ’s The table salt . “ It ’s not like you may develop fields of beaver to harvest . There are n’t very many of them . So it ends up being a very expensive product — and not very popular with nutrient company . ”
So while it ’s hard to sleep together what nutrient or fragrances moderate castoreum , there is very little of it out there . It may be deserving saving your alert for another matter — or only spar a thought for the dress hat .
A version of this news report ran in 2017 ; it has been updated for 202
