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You’ll never look at vanilla extract the same after finding out it was made from beaver butt secretion
Sometimes there are things you wish you’d never found out, like what vanilla and strawberry extracts used to be made from.
People on the internet can never look at it the same way again after finding out it was made with goo from a beaver’s butt. Yes, really.
What vanilla extract was made from
Vanilla flavoring used to be made from castoreum, a substance collected from the glands of Canadian, European, and Siberian beavers which are found in between the anus and genitals. Yuck!
The yellowish secretion comes from the castor sacs and beavers use it in combination with urine to scent mark their territory. It’s also found in platypuses, who use it in reproductive communication.
This substance used to be used as a natural flavoring for all kinds of things, from perfumes to foods, due to its sweet, musky flavor.
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It has notes of vanilla, strawberry, and raspberry, and was used in all kinds of things including sweets, ice cream, fruit-flavored drinks, yogurt, and gelatin.
Castoreum isn’t used anymore
Thankfully, castoreum isn’t used anymore so you don’t need to worry about eating beaver butt goo every time you have something vanilla or strawberry flavored.
We spoke to food scientist Dr. Bryan Quoc Le who explained that castoreum was used as a flavoring in the production of desserts and perfumes for thousands of years.
“However, when the Spanish first encountered and brought back vanilla beans to Europe after meeting the Aztecs in the 16th century, the European royalty began favoring vanilla beans as a luxury flavoring from the New World,” he told The Focus.
Vanilla beans quickly became the more popular source of vanilla as plantation owners discovered they could plant vanilla vines in other regions with similar climates, like Madagascar, Tahiti, and Indonesia, but beavers still provided a source of castoreum for high-end speciality sweets and perfumes.
“The true death-knell for beaver castoreum came when two German chemists, Dr. Wilhelm Haarman and Ferdinand Tiemann discovered a way to synthesize vanillin, the principal flavor compound in vanilla, from eucalyptus oil in the late 19th century,” he continued.
Over time, the industrial production of vanilla became less expensive and more popular as a source of cheap vanilla flavor, so castoreum essentially died out. However, the FDA does generally recognize castoreum as safe.
Now, castoreum isn’t really used in anything at all�as it’s extremely expensive and inconvenient to extract from the animal. So, other alternatives are used instead. Phew!
