Is Vinegar made from petroleum?
By Karina | May 7, 2008
We talk a lot about using vinegar as a cleaning product - in fact, the entire eco-cleaning and frugal community talk about it a lot, too. But a friend of mine tipped me off to a potential problem with vinegar - turns out that some vinegars may be made from petroleum.
When my friend told me this I was like: WHAT THE HECK THIS IS GROUNDSHAKING HORRIFYING INFORMATION. Vinegar is our magical eco-friendly cleaning solution! it just *can’t* be made from petroleum products!
So I tried to do a little research. Thing is, there isn’t very much out there. Just a lot of rumors. For example, from the Heinz Vinegar webpage:
The Only All Natural National Brand Vinegar*
Heinz® Vinegars have no additives or preservatives. Vinegar’s key ingredient is alcohol. Unlike many budget brand vinegars which derive their alcohol from petroleum, Heinz® Vinegars are the only national brand to use only sun ripened corn or crisp, juicy apples and water.
This page has a very good description of how vinegar is made, and it refers simply to an alcohol being fermented with vinegar bacteria.
The transformation of wine or fruit juice to vinegar is a chemical process in which ethyl alcohol undergoes partial oxidation that results in the formation of acetaldehyde. In the third stage, the acetaldehyde is converted into acetic acid. The chemical reaction is as follows: CH3CH2OH=2HCH3CHO=CH3COOH.
Wikipedia says about the same - but it goes back to the acetic acid bit, and if you click through to the acetic acid page wikipedia says:
The global demand of acetic acid is around 6.5 million tonnes per year (Mt/a), of which approximately 1.5 Mt/a is met by recycling; the remainder is manufactured from petrochemical feedstocks or from biological sources.
but then it also says this:
Acetic acid is produced both synthetically and by bacterial fermentation. Today, the biological route accounts for only about 10% of world production, but it remains important for vinegar production, as the world food purity laws stipulate that vinegar used in foods must be of biological origin. About 75% of acetic acid made for use in the chemical industry is made by methanol carbonylation
So, who do I believe? Heinz, who has a stake in being the purest and most food-based vinegar? Or Wikipedia, which could be edited by anyone, including the Budget Vinegar Czar desperate to prop up the image his product?
Luckily the FDA is on the case and I found this interesting paper discussing if synthetic alcohol (aka, that derived from petroleum products) can be used in vinegar:
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.”
and concludes with
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.
So it’s true! Check your vinegar labels!
I went to the grocery store and did the following research for my fellow Tiny Choosers:
Heinz Vinegar:
Stop and Shop store brand vinegar:
And both check out a-ok.
Have you checked your vinegar? Did you even imagine that this could be true?
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Topics: General |
No, I never EVER imagined that it could be true. It always comes back to the evil Budget Vinegar Czar, damn him.
Ok, so what exactly should we be looking for on the label??
just check the ingredients!
for the stop and shop brand it says: acetous fermentation of distilled alcohol derived from corn or sugar, distilled with water to 5% acidity.
and for heinz it says:made from select sun-riped grain, diluted with water to a uniform pickling strength and table strength of 5% acidity.
I read about vinegar potentially coming from petrochemical sources, so I checked the bottles we had in the house. Stop and Shop brand, so we’re all good.
Scary to consider the alternative though, since I do some food prep with vinegar. I don’t want to eat something from crude oil!
Um, NO, I had never considered this! Luckily I get the honking gallon-sized *Heinz* bottles so i am all set. But will keep this in mind as really I usually just get the biggest and cheapest ones I can find (since I use so much in cleaning and wash). Thanks so much for raising this issue. Sigh, I love Tiny Choices (exactly my brand of geekery!).
I was relieved to find that the big bottle under my sink is heinz, too. phew!
and thank you! I’m glad that our geekery is also your geekery! :)
TC is my brand of Geekery, too! I Heart you gals!
rockstar geeks unite! we gals heart you!
Geek Love!
Looks like the anti-war movement has a new chant: NO BLOOD FOR BALSAMIC
Ha! That made me thought out loud!
That is the perfect slogan for our first round of TC t-shirts!
I just use Ume Vinegar for everything, which comes from natural fermination juices when pickling ume plums with sea salt. Since I have celiac sprue, i can’t use anything from grains, so i lucked out and unknowingly have avoided dashing petroleum vinegar on salads :)
So weird when we find out where our food actually comes from. Strange how no one questioned these practices from the start.
Gah, I’m so glad that I have the gallons of Heinz. Now I need to double check the apple cider vinegar I get for when I dye my hair.
I *think* that this should only affect white vinegar - apple cider vinegar really REALLY should be made from apple cider!
Some totally isn’t, though! But, um, yeah, that makes sense. Hee.
Thanks so much for looking into this - I tried to research it a while back and got nowhere. What would it say in the ingredients if it *had* been made from petroleum?
I’m not really sure! I am going to be checking the vinegar aisle in every grocery store, though, just to be sure.
[…] Tiny Choices questions if vinegar is made from petroleum. […]
This is UNBELIEVABLE… I have two gigundo jugs of vinegar at the house from Costco… and I will be checking that pronto! Drinking/eating anything made from oil is HORRIFYING. Oh my goodness!
Thank you for this in-depth research! Wow!
I just wish it was easier to find answers! but I guess the best thing to do is always check the labels.
I knew this to be true, as my dad was a petroleum engineer, so it is not news to me.
We avoid all but “natural” vinegar because of this. I don’t know that it is dangerous, but food made from, well, food seems like such a better idea than food made from petroleum.
If I had petrol-based vinegars laying about, I’d use them for cleaning rather than dump them down the drain, but I would choose not to eat them.
now that you’ve verified this information I am even more confident in my research!
The Four Monks vinegar (the stuff from Costco) just says distilled vinegar, diluted to 5% acidity. The label also calls it wine vinegar - any idea what that means?
wine vinegar ought to be derived from wine, not from synthesized alcohol (petroleum). one hopes, anyway!
I am going to totally do a post over at TDBotD all about this!
Short version; I don’t eat vinegar, or anything made with/ derived from vinegar, and never have, because I absolutely can’t STAND the stuff! I guess I subconsciously must have known all along…
Okay, I gotta play devil’s advocate here. I’m against using any more petroleum than necessary just because it’s getting scarce. However, theoretically, petroleum is just complex carbon derived from algae which has been super-duper cooked. (Yeah, technical, I know). So why not rearrange those carbon molecules back into something we can digest?
I suppose oil is unappetizing enough to make it’s derivatives unappetizing. Heck, I guess ancient algae is unappetizing enough to make it’s derivatives unappetizing! But I’m just sayin’…
you’re right, Becca - plus I’m a big fan of fully using up byproducts so we have maximum efficiency. but at the same time I’m trying so hard to minimize the use of petroleum in my life through driving more efficiently, using less plastics, and I guess also choosing the right vinegar - just ’cause it’s a finite resource. And I’m sure that our need for vinegar is not driving the cost of oil up, but if I can cut back here too, it’s a tiny choice I’m eager to make!
Karina and Becca, yes white vinegar is a byproduct. It is also pure vinegar so its source does not matter. I am a MD but before that I studied honors chemistry. I understand organic chemistry. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed only changed. For health benefits in your food you do not want white vinegar you want wine or apple cider for the bio-flavoids. This is where choosing the right vinegar matters. It would be like you saying you want your aspirin only from willow tree bark, but I doubt that you even knew that was the first source of aspirin, which is now a petroleum industry byproduct. For your laundry, white vinegar is cheaper and 1/2 cup to 1 cup will pull the soap out of the clothes in the rinse water. As to petroleum being scarce that is a lie by the USA gov. It is not a fossil fuel as it once was believed. The majority of it is generated by the earth it self by coal and steam under pressure. There are oil fields capped off all over this nation (just drive on the interstate highway system and see for yourself-I have). Pres. Eisenhower thought we should use up the Middle East’s reserves first then use our own. However our present day US Congress are less educated and greater liers. We are “swimming” in natural gas energy. The oil fields that were drained 50 years ago are refilling by natural processes. Remember just because something states it is a natural product, that does not make it safe. High fructose corn syrup should be used in very low doses. I do not like it as a substitute for sugar. It is harder for the human liver to process because its pathway in the liver is slower than that for glucose and sucrose (sugar). I am a scientist, MD,Psychiatrist and proud of it. However one cannot do it all, I did not birth a child and only in my later years have I helped raise a girl to her 18th year. Family is just as important to me as knowledge because knowledge is to help the family, friends and community live a better life.
Stumbled in here after seeing an ad ( must’ve been Heinz’s! ) about petroleum in vinegar. Shocking to find it to be partially true! But Becca, I had the same kind of questions about organic VS inorganic chemistry in college-molecules are made of the same atoms whether they are living or dead. At what point do we declare “life!” Vis a vis this debate, at what point do we panic over what we’re eating?
But still, I ain’t eatin’ no dang oil, y’know?
Bet you didn’t know that APPLES are dipped in wax made from petroleum.
Yummy!!!
Hey Erika, can you pass me a slice of that good ol’ American apple pie?
;)
This is unbelievable!! Here I am thinking that I’m using all natural products to clean my house and it comes to this!! I’m at work but as soon as I get home I will be checking the vinegar that I buy from Walmart. I do buy Heinz also but I buy the really cheap stuff to clean my toilet. I don’t use white distilled vinegar as far as food consumption so that makes me feel a little bit better. All this time I thought vinegar was made with natural products. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Oh one more thing…what is this talk about TC (Tiny Choosers)???
What about the high fructose corn syrup that is in almost every processed food product, soda, sweetened water, etc. High fructose corn syrup is also made with petroleums. The corn used is not even edible!
Found this through google search, after reading the label on a Heinz product, I was curious! Very interesting. The FDA article says “Incidentally, I might add that most of the alcohol used in the production of medicinal preparations and flavors is synthetic.” I wonder if it means baking flavors, such as vanilla or almond. I use Simply Organic brand, but they have alchohol in them. I wonder what the source is.
[…] So, in this vein, my husband and I have been discussing peak oil. Now, mind you, we have very separate hobbies. I indulge him when he talks about galaxies and telescopes and he indulges me when I talk about local foods and sustainability. So, he has asked me a couple of questions I couldn’t really answer and since I tend to get all flustered and sound stupid when I try to explain my stand on such issues as peak oil, I decided to do a little research. He made the comment that most people make when I talk about running out of oil. “Well, some other fuel will take its place.” So, I started telling him that a LOT of other things, in fact, most of the everyday things in our homes, are made from petroleum in one way or another. I found several lists of things that are made from petroleum online and then ran across a search result that talked about vinegar being made from petroleum! Whoa! I use vinegar A LOT in my household cleaning and this really threw me for a loop. Vinegar is the new-old natural cleaning method and if it is made from oil - well, hell (stomping of foot)! So this is what I discovered: some vinegars are, in fact, made from a petroleum derivative. Here is the link to the entire article http://tinychoices.com/2008/05/07/is-vinegar-made-from-petroleum/. […]
I buy Heinz for cooking with but I will have to check the stuff I clean with. EWW!
Hello and thank you for the info. I ran across your blog while researching corn-based ethynol. I found this ingredient in my dish soap (GreenWorks by Clorox)! I am dumbfounded after further research. This is supposed to be a “green” product and yet the whole production process of corn and it’s derived substances iseven worse for the environment. Any ideas on a better cleaner?
Check out Norwex.com You can clean your whole house with great stuff that doesn’t use any toxins. Most of it you can do with their amazing microfiber that removes 99.9% of bacteria with just water. I’d be happy to hook you up!
Caroline
Sounds like to me if you can take petroleum and make vinegar, why couldn’t you take vinegar and make an affordable and eco-friendly fuel? Just some food/fuel for thought. They can actually make synthetic plastics and what have you. So if they can come up with those receipes, well you can see where I’m going.
Hey, Cowboy, I ‘ve thought about having a bumper-sticker made that says something like:
Fake fur is made from fossil fuels! Save the planet from global warming-wear real fur, the original all-natural, biodegradable, 100% renewable resource!
According to Heinz, checking the label does no good - I just saw a Heinz ad in Family Circle magazine - it says ” Vinegar can come from natural sources like corn and apples. Or it can come from petroleum. And labels don’t have to tell you which. Heinz All-Natural Distilled White Vinegar is made from sun-ripened corn and crystal clear water. Period.”
I think labels SHOULD have to specify!!!
[…] http://tinychoices.com/2008/05/07/is-vinegar-made-from-petroleum/ Comments (0) […]
And the FDA is supposed to be protecting us???? How is it protecting us to allow companies to feed us petroleum derivatives in our foods?? I don’t get that. On a related topic - I further do not understand how they can allow companies to make red food coloring out of BUGS, and we unknowingly eat them. Hideous!!! Makes me want to go all organic, all natural when I hear stuff like this.
You thought the FDA was to protect you? Ha Ha This the AMA and the US Congress is the high cost of medicine. Medicine in the USA means patent drugs. That is what the pharmaceutical companies do. Yes I am an Allopathic Physician, aka a MD, trained in the USA. I am fed up. My colleagues around the world received nutrition as part of their medical curriculum. I sought this education before medical school and continue training in it due to a historical statement by Hippocrates, the Greek Physician c460-c377. He said food is medicine and medicine is food. This statement is true. I looked in three dictionaries and any thing that changes what is going on inside the cell is a drug. Food had better change what is going on inside a cell or we will starve, die. THE POINT IS whatever is taken into the body it should promote healthy cellular processes. Many of the foods and spices over the centuries have a rich history in medicine. Access to this knowledge has been denied to your MD by his/ her training over 65 years now because of a change in the AMA schools medical curriculum. I was a scientist before medical school so I had an idea what was missing but my classmates did not know. Worse yet most did not care. They were “parrots”. J.P. Morgan the Stock Market person was invested in patent medicine, pharmaceuticals. He gave lab equipment in exchange for patent medicine to be taught. That is not a crime! It is a good thing; however, the AMA is charged with standardizing medicine. It is the fault of the AMA to exclude the food is medicine concept. As to all natural, that is a marketing ploy to make you think if it is natural it is safe. This is just not so. Plants make methane (marsh gas) and it is just as dangerous as if you turned on the stove without the pilot light.. You know how to use a gas stove because you were taught the safety issues. People stay out of the marsh. But what happens if a natural lake turns over as it does every 50 to 150 years and there are mountians in the back of a village. Well this happened to one small village 15 years ago in India, they died the methane is heavier than air . It was natural!!!!
eating bugs would be the all organic way to go. That is the organic red colour!! Just because you are not used to the concept of eating bugs does not make it gross, unhealthy or somehow non-green.
We are discussing this ridiculous news online in an organic living folder. There seems to be no way we can avoid everything that’s out there that can harm us. We eat from plastic that the FDA says is sometimes harmful and sometimes not. We use cosmetics, vinegar, medicines that are all made from oil or oil byproducts ie, sulfonimides,ie.,Celebrex. We breathe bad air on a daily basis and are told that its better than it was. Has anyone checked to see what the exhaust of a car now causes?? Guess we all just need to keep on truckin’ in the best way we know how!
Thank you very, very,much for taking the time to post this info and source links!!!!
I was always made to believe that vinegar should come from a biological source or a product that comes from double fermentation, the alcoholic and acetic stage of fermentation. In fact its good to imagine that all fruits with high sugar content can be made into vinegar. It’s quite alarming to know that scrupulous businessmen would make use of GLACIAL ACETIC ACID as vinegar. Some countries in fact allows it’s usage. A petroleum based sour condiment should not be called vinegar at all.
Is there a way to technically identify natural vinegar and synthetic vinegar?
No, there is no way to identify a pure vinegar (acetic acid) source from one made from plant derivatives or oil derivatives. A pure compound is a pure compound. Pure water distilled from: urine, ocean water, fresh water, juice, sewage, Dead Sea water, glacial ice, snow, etc., yields pure water. At that point one cannot name its source. There are no trace minerals left for even a hint. That is chemistry!!!!!! Doc.Barb. M.D., Psychiatrist, Fellow Am Psychotherapy Assoc., Member Am Soc Quality, B. S. honors Chemistry, Assoc. Elect. Eng. Tech
Thanks for the information. I have always purchased organic and natural vinegars, while Heinz may be from a “natural” source it still is not organic, and also there is a problem with acidic foods kept in plastic bottles. Not only do chemicals from the bottles leech into your food, but the production of the bottles causes mass pollution.
So consider purchasing your vinegar only in glass bottles. Also, it’s relatively easy to make vinegar yourself from wine! Both white and red table wines work well for homemade vinegar. I personally like Braggs natural Apple Cider Vinegar, or Eden Organics Rice Vinegar. They are a bit more expensive, however.
For eating I agree. Glass is protective and the bio-flavoids are good nutrition. White vinegar is distilled vinegar. Its source does not matter. Pure 5% acetic acid in water is of value to the body and does no harm within reason. That is do not drink 8 oz or more. Over using vinegar, with or without the bio-flavoids, can change the content of the acid in the stomach and that would not be good. To get the benefits of the bio-flavoids make sure the apple cider vinegar is not just flavored apple cider but IS apple cider vinegar. I have never seen wine flavored vinegar. To your health and wellbeing