People Are Disturbed To Learn What Vanilla Flavoring Is Made From

When you visit TikTok, you probably are going to scroll through the videos and watch people dancing or making a fool of themselves.

Every once in a while, however, you learn a little something and perhaps that is where this social media platform really shines.

That is the case with the video uploaded by @sloowmoee.

Photo: flickr/Brian Boucheron

They wanted their followers to look up information and, in fact, they did it in real-time for the audience. The question was, where does vanilla flavoring come from?

This was part of a viral trend that asked people to record themselves before and after looking up where vanilla flavoring came from. When he did it, his reaction was classic.

He said: “NO MORE VANILLA. THAT IS — AHHHHHH.”

Photo: TikTok/@sloowmoee

What he learned was that vanilla flavoring is not always something savory. It can actually come from beavers, from the castor sacs located near their tail base. That can be used in vanilla flavors as well as in natural fruit and vegetable flavors. The perfume industry also uses it to make fragrances smell good.

According to<National Geographic, a wildlife ecologist, JoAnn Crawford, said: “You can milk the anal glands so you can extract the fluid. You can squirt [castoreum] out. It’s pretty gross.”

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

National Geographic reports that about 292 pounds of this substance are produced every year. It is somewhat difficult and expensive to milk a beaver, so we can see why it isn’t as popular as it could be.

Check out the TikTok video below:

@sloowmoee @shaylanmarieee ♬ original sound – Sloowmoee

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