This is why the internet is freaking out about the origins of vanilla flavouring

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Over the weekend, TikTok user @sloowmoee posted a clip to the video sharing platform, in which he says: “Record yourself before and after googling ‘where does vanilla flavouring come from’?”.

After googling the question, he shouts: “No more vanilla!”

@sloowmoee

@shaylanmarieee TRIED TO MORDOR ME

♬ original sound - Sloowmoee

The video has garnered over 127 thousand likes, and over three thousand comments since it was posted.

Since then, the question, “where does vanilla flavouring come from?” has been taking over social media sites.

Where did vanilla flavouring come from?

While most of us are aware that vanilla extracts and vanilla flavoured things come from vanilla pods, there are non-plant ways of creating artificial vanilla flavourings.

A chemical compound used in vanilla flavouring and scents comes from the anal glands of beavers. Castoreum is a substance that is produced by a beaver’s castor sac, which is found between the pelvis and the base of the tail.

Beavers use this substance, which is usually brown and sticky, to mark their territory. The vanilla scent is often attributed to the animal’s diet of bark and leaves.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves castoreum as a food additive.

A 2007 study in the International Journal of Toxicology found that manufacturers had been using castoreum extensively in foods and perfumes for at least 80 years.

Joanna Crawford, a wildlife ecologist at Southern Illinois University, told National Geographic that to acquire the castoreum, the beaver needs to be anaesthetised and then it’s nether regions are “milked”.

She said: “You can milk the anal glands so you can extra the fluid.

“You can squirt [castoreum] out. It’s pretty gross.”

Is modern day vanilla made using beaver anal secretions?

Internet fact checking site Snopes gave the claim that castorum is a commonly used food additive a rating of “mostly false”.

The website states: “The use of castoreum in common food products today is exceedingly rare, in large part because collecting the substance is difficult (and therefore expensive).”