DEAR DR. BLONZ: I remain confused as to why organic and holistic food makers don't use flavors from the food that is the origin of that flavor, such as using the compound in real strawberries to flavor other strawberry-flavored foods. I see "natural flavors" listed, but I know these are not the same. How do natural flavors differ from artificial flavors? -- R.Q., Seattle

DEAR R.Q.: Whether in fresh, whole foods or highly processed ones, flavors come from distinct combinations of chemicals. Making them involves high-tech science, complete with chemists and secret formulas designed to convince your palate you've got the real thing.

The direct approach might sound preferable, but it's risky commercially. Plant flavors are potent but low in concentration, being made and sustained for a specific reason: signaling when its seeds are fully formed and ready for action. The timing is important, as animals eating fruits and then passing the seeds through their GI tracts are one way that seeds get distributed in nature. The system fails if seeds get consumed before they are ready; this explains why plants evolved to keep poachers away from their immature fruit -- with undesirable flavors and indistinct aromas and colors.

Extracted plant flavors and aromas are less stable, can break down during processing and storage, and/or can interact negatively with other ingredients or the packaging material. There's also a question of uniformity, as fresh foods vary from producer to producer and season to season. Biting into a less-than-sweet fresh strawberry wouldn't stop you from eating other fresh strawberries, but a bad taste in a strawberry-flavored processed food made with "natural strawberry flavor" and "other natural flavors" might.

There's an interest in having "natural" or "no artificial anything" on food labels. To label a flavor "natural" requires that its components come from natural sources. While some flavor from the strawberry would need to be in "natural strawberry flavor," that's not so for products labeled as "naturally flavored" or "with other natural flavors."

Even if scientists could control the inconsistencies of food flavors, the supply couldn't meet the demand. If, for example, the manufacturer had to use real strawberries to make strawberry Jell-O, the world supply of strawberries could be exhausted in days.

Flavor chemists isolate and identify the compounds that are responsible for a flavor. If making an artificial flavor, the chemists can develop a synthetic version of the actual flavor. If the label is to read "natural" but the flavor is not naturally found in the actual food, the chemist would combine different naturally occurring substances to create a flavor impression that matches the target flavor. Companies use tasting panels to help them identify flavor combinations that work best for their target consumers; this also means that one company's "natural" flavor may taste nothing like another's.

Ironically, one's sense of taste is not always the best way to identify a natural flavor. One processed food product flavored with a higher percentage of real strawberries might taste inferior to another with a better formula in its "other natural flavors."

Ultimately, a good advertising campaign might persuade a consumer to try a product, but repeat business and ultimate success in the marketplace will depend on how it tastes. In today's marketplace, the only way to avoid the issue of flavor additives is to stick with fresh, whole foods.

Send questions to: "On Nutrition," Ed Blonz, c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO, 64106. Send email inquiries to questions@blonz.com. Due to the volume of mail, personal replies cannot be provided.

DEAR DR. BLONZ: I am puzzled about the accuracy of nutrition labels on some products, particularly about calories. One example is the calories listed for almond milk. Almonds are so high in calories, yet a 1-cup serving of unsweetened almond milk is listed as having only 30 calories. -- C.K.

DEAR C.K.: Almonds are considered nuts, but they are also the seeds of the almond tree. Seeds must be light enough to travel to new areas for resources. For the journey to be successful, a seed must come with enough of its own energy to fuel all developmental chores until it can gather fresh energy from the sun. Because fats are the most concentrated energy in animals and plants, they are packed into seeds for this job, surrounded by a seed coat for protection.

Let's do some almond milk calculations, based on one cup of unroasted almonds -- an amount a typical recipe might use to make up to five cups of almond milk. According to the USDA database, one cup of unroasted almonds will contain about 816 calories, 70 grams of fat, 30 grams of protein, 30 grams of carbohydrate and 18 grams of dietary fiber. Almonds are also an excellent source of minerals -- one cup contains 380 mg each of calcium and magnesium and 1,033 mg of potassium -- so they're an excellent food with many nutrients.

Almonds can be made into a "milk" after soaking in filtered water overnight, then blended into a fine, watery meal, which is then filtered through a nut-milk bag or clean dish towel. Flavoring can be added at this point. Freshly made almond milk is a treat -- if you've never tried it, check this recipe at b.link/h2tytu for some ideas. If making your own, be sure to sanitize equipment as well as bottles that will be used for homemade almond milk storage. (Store-bought nut milk gets pasteurized.) It will last three to five days in the refrigerator.

The key to the Nutrition Facts numbers you noted is that most of the fat, protein and carbohydrate calories and minerals are in the almond solids, so they remain in the bag. You don't get one-fifth of the nutrients of one cup of almonds in a cup of almond milk. For example, there would be 163 calories in one-fifth of a cup of almonds, but only 62 calories in a cup of almond milk; this can vary between commercial brands. Some manufacturers fortify their almond and other nondairy milks with calcium to more closely resemble dairy milk. For more on food labels, Nutrition Facts and the information they must contain, see b.link/kdav9h.

When making your own almond milk, be sure to find a use for the resulting almond pulp. There are many recipes that use this fiber- and nutrient-rich pulp; see b.link/gbbkah for some suggestions. Almond pulp can also be date-labeled and stored in the freezer for later use.

Send questions to: "On Nutrition," Ed Blonz, c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO, 64106. Send email inquiries to questions@blonz.com. Due to the volume of mail, personal replies cannot be provided.

DEAR DR. BLONZ: I am hoping for your take on this "miracle ice hack" that says we lose body weight when we drink ice water, because the body has to use its calories to bring the water up to body temperature. I see this mentioned periodically, and it seems too good to be true, but some inescapable logic makes me curious. -- S.F., Chicago

DEAR S.F.: Wouldn't that be an easy fix? This "miracle ice hack" emerges periodically and sounds enticing enough to have many asking whether it makes sense. It is correct that the body would need to use its energy, measured in calories, to raise ice water -- or any cold food -- to body temperature.

However, a check of the math shows this to be insignificant regarding body weight. The mixup stems from the fact that calories used as a unit of heat in physics differ from the calories used to express the energy in food (and body fat) -- by a factor of 1,000.

In physics, a calorie is the unit of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. By contrast, the food/fat calorie is 1,000 times that amount, the energy needed to raise 1,000 grams of water (1 kilogram) 1 degree Celsius.

To help understand what "calorie" you are referring to, food/fat calories are spelled with an uppercase "C", but that never worked out well, especially if "calorie" is the first word of a sentence. Then there was the issue where mid-sentence "C"alories get inadvertently changed to lowercase by proofreaders. In scientific articles and published literature, food calories are written as kilocalories, or kcals. But these terms caused confusion. Nutrition and Supplement Facts labels do not use kilocalories or kcals. They capitalize the "C" in calories, although this distinction is not appreciated.

As a result, the calorie has been left on its own in the popular press, and we remain vulnerable to issues such as this "miracle ice hack," which has people wondering why ice water doesn't make them thin.

Here's the math to show how ice water fails to provide a chill way to lose weight. To avoid confusion, I will specify "thermal calories" for those that relate to one gram of water and kcals for those that relate to one kilogram of water (the latter being the food/body fat calories). Let's use the measure that there are 3,500 kcals in a pound of body fat (for reference, this is the equivalent of 3,500,000 thermal calories). Raising the temperature of 1 cup (8 ounces, or 227 grams) of ice water from refrigerator temperature (5 degrees C) to body temperature (37 degrees C) reflects a rise of 32 degrees (37 – 5 = 32 degrees change). The energy required for this rise is 7,264 thermal calories (227 grams x 32 thermal calories per degree); 7,264 thermal calories are equivalent to 7.3 kcals.

The chilling perspective here is that 8 ounces of ice water "burns" 7.3 kcals to bring it up to body temperature, and there are 3,500 kcals in a pound of body fat, so it would take 28 gallons of ice water to burn the energy equivalent of 1 pound of body fat.

Send questions to: "On Nutrition," Ed Blonz, c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO, 64106. Send email inquiries to questions@blonz.com. Due to the volume of mail, personal replies cannot be provided.