Natural Flavor

I have spent an increasing amount of time over the years reading food labels. Yet, it never occurred to me to question what “natural flavor” was. I read it and think – yeah, of course, natural flavor. They are just squeezing a little lime on top or something, right?

Wrong.

As it turns out, natural flavor can mean a lot. From the FDA‘s site:

(3) The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. 

This is weird because you could be buying crackers and end up with roots and shrimp for all you know! Not sure how I feel about this one.

“Cheugy”

Apparently, cheugy is a word/thing, now? From my understanding, it’s another way that Gen Z is trying to make fun of Millennials for being basic bitches.

Since I’m more of a Gen X / Xennial, I am lucky enough to both literally and figuratively give no fucks about this.

PS – I may literally/figuratively never get over that the definition of literally was updated to include its hyperbolic use, but this super snarky entry from Merriam-Webster may eventually win me over. At least they haven’t added “cheugy” yet.

“Take out of mothballs”

Often when I’m writing for work, I use a thesaurus. I like finding just the right word for the type of writing I’m doing. When falling down the rabbit hole looking for a better word for “trigger” as in the “trigger date,” I ended up in a rabbit hole that led me to “take out of mothballs.”

This is supposedly a synonym for activate. I don’t get it. I went with “event date.”