Have you read your vinegar label today? The reason I am always stressing that you should read the vinegar label.
by The Artful Omnivore on Wednesday, 11 August 2010 at 12:31
As many of you who know me can testify, I am inclined to get up on my soapbox in a skinny minute if there is something that I feel people oughta know. It is pickle making season and I decided that I would expose the truth about white vinegar today.
In Rebecca Woods' book, The Whole Foods Encyclopedia, there all kinds of little blurbs and one of these blurbs contained some facts about white distilled vinegar. Seems that since about 1955 the USDA has allowed white distilled vinegar to be made from petroleum. Yes, I said P-E-T-R-O-L-E-U-M. And since I didn't want to post anything here that wasn't fact checked, I did a little research before I wrote this NOTE and here is what I found. This information came from the website www.tinychoices.com which researched this rumor for truth and validity. Read on, fellow foodies! Everything in quotation marks below came from this website, no comment from me til the last paragraph.
"Questions have been raised as to whether we can or should continue to consider synthetic alcohol unsuitable for food use. In order to secure more information, we wrote to the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division, Internal Revenue Service. Their reply included the following paragraphs:
“Presently, we authorize the manufacture of vinegar from ethyl alcohol synthesized from natural gas or petroleum derivatives. It is our opinion that most of the distilled spirits used in the production of vinegar are derived from natural gas and petroleum…“When alcohol is used in the production of beverage products, our regulations require that the source of the alcohol be shown on the label except for cordials and liqueurs. ( Incidentally, I might add that most of the alcohol used in the production of medicinal preparations and flavors is synthetic.”
Their (ATF) letter concludes with the statement:
POLICY: Synthetic ethyl alcohol may be used as a food ingredient or in the manufacturing of vinegar or other chemicals for food use, within limitations imposed by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Alcohol Administration Act, and regulations promulgated under these acts."
It is my understanding that at one time it was also distilled from a byproduct of the furniture finishing industry but that is no longer a practice. While I realize that chemically acetic acid is probably acetic acid, no matter where it came from originally, something about using motor oil as a foodstuff just rubs me the wrong way. Check your pantry and see how many product you have that just say"distilled vinegar" in the ingredients list. One more check mark in the organic box!
