Any pearl-clutching articles you may have run across spreading panic that there’s beaver butt oil in your food are greatly exaggerated. “All five unanimously stated that castoreum is not used today in any form of vanilla sold for human food use” and that it’s more common use is in fragrances.
Going farther back, in 2011, one vegetarian non-profit asked five companies that produce natural and artificial vanilla if they used castoreum in their products. Since at least 2013, only 300 pounds of castoreum have been produced annually. The entire experience sounds unappetizing (would you really want to use castoreum on your food after witnessing where it comes from?) and uncomfortable, for the beaver in particular. First the beaver must be anesthetized and the castor gland “milked” to produce the secretion. According to National Geographic, the process is complex and invasive. The biggest challenge to processing castoreum for use in food is that it’s challenging to harvest, as you might imagine. Castoreum is rarely used to flavor food anymore, and even if it were, the FDA has ruled that it poses no health risk. Don’t rush into your kitchen and purge all your vanilla extract from your cabinets or toss your vanilla ice cream from the freezer, though. The properties of castoreum have made it a popular additive in perfumes and to enhance vanilla, strawberry, and raspberry flavors in foods like ice cream and yogurt.
Thanks to a diet of tree bark, the goo has a musky fragrance similar to natural vanilla. In nature, beavers use castoreum to mark their territory. The castor gland, located underneath the beaver’s tail distressingly close to the anus, produces a slimy brown substance called castoreum.
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