December 10, 2021 • 42 mins
Added flavors feature in as much as 90% of our groceries, so the science of creating them is a serious business. We unpack the difference between natural and artificial flavors and explore how some of the most famous (blue raspberry! MSG!) came to be.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heeart Radio.
I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have a classic episode for you about artificial flavorings. Yes,
and this is uh can we call it oldie but
a goodie? I sure it's yeah, it's fun. It originally
aired in um February of Wow, Yeah, wow, yes, um,
(00:35):
And interestingly enough, I love it. I love it when
your listeners ask me these questions as if it's very
important to you. But I believe I mentioned in this
episode that artificial flavoring is one of the wide categories
of food that I kind of cheat and say I
don't like artificial flavors fruit artificial flavors, right, And I've
(01:00):
had a couple of listeners right in with follow up questions. Yeah,
and I'm only too happy to go into it. Um
oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't like fruit artificial flavoring,
and I actually don't. I actually think I might because
one of the other ones is carible. Um, and I
(01:22):
actually think my bigger problem might be or whatever, which
is also I think part of the doctor Pepper thing,
which I also I despise more than anything. I can't
put into words how much I hate Dr pepper. Wow.
(01:45):
I I don't despise flavor. Usually if I dislike a food,
it's a texture issue more than a flavor issue. Um.
There are a couple of foods like I think I
talked about in the chestnuts episode, which I forgot that
we did, um until and trying to do that to me.
I would I put it on the schedule for us
to do an episode about, and she was like, nah, no, dude,
(02:07):
it's a very sad story. Um. But but no, they
they're they're yeah, like like like chestnuts, I just like
because they taste a little bit too rich to me.
But even that, I'm kind of getting over. I don't
understand this severe version that you have. I wish I
could like this. It's a physical like my whole body
(02:29):
is like no, yeah, nope, yeh know it like makes
you angry, it does. I'm getting a little heeded talking
about um, but I do. It's funny because it is
one of those things I do like talking about. I
really appreciate when you listen or like I'm just like
a scientist taking notes, like like, well, just curious because
(02:52):
there's something I'm sure I'm fine with I've definitely had
some and I'm you know, just okay. But and a
lot of it is more not the Dr Pepper level
of hate. It's just like I would never I would
rather not eat it. I would never choose to eat it,
seek it out. If someone offers it to me, I
will say no. It's not like that level, at visceral level. Um,
(03:15):
but it is interesting. I don't I don't know what's
going on either. And that's one of the things that
fascinates me about humans in general, is why they like
what they like and why they don't like what they
don't like. Yeah, it's um, you know, we are we
are all our own little little mysteries, just just booping
around the universe being mysterious to ourselves as well. You're right.
(03:42):
I like that we are all our own little mysteries. Um.
But this one, this one a lot of mysteries and
a lot of interesting historical taste facts. I just thought
about how people think like it should taste, for instance. Yeah, no,
(04:02):
and then right right, this was a really fun one
in terms of science. Um, I get really riled up
a few times in it. Uh. As always, we did
a super brief like oh man has there been any
wacky news about artificial flavoring um and and people are
still mad that it's artificial, and that's you know, and
you know again we're see above, we where all our
(04:26):
own mysteries. And if yeah, I don't personally see scientifically speaking,
a reason to be that angry about it, well, I
only see it in terms of my friends tricking me
into drinking and drink that I despise. But yes, scientifically
(04:49):
i'm generally, but you're not. You're not like out there
like lobbying against dr pepper. You're like, no one should
drink dr pepper. You're not like set it on fire?
Are like that? Why have I never thought of? No? No,
I want people to like what they like. Most most
(05:09):
everyone I know loves it um like. That's not even exaggeration.
I'm pretty sure most everyone I know loves it UM.
So I would never deprive someone just because I have
an issue that's very personal. There's no science involved other
than my example study of one. But yes, yes, you
(05:30):
are correct, Like would you like go Ford, go for it,
go forth and drink this thing that Annie viscerally despises.
I don't know how it's turned into this. I think
we're going to get a note from our advertising at people.
No longer a sponsor, no longer for for For the record,
(05:51):
I do love Dr Pepper, so I, oh, let's because
I always do this. I just have to draw griptic kids.
But alas, the episode is not about this one specific products.
It's not. It's not. We've gone on quite a long
time now about something that's this episode, right, is not
(06:12):
about So so let us get into that episode and
I'll let former Annie and Lauren take it away. Hello,
and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogel Bump and
(06:32):
Diamond Eries, and today we're talking about artificial flavor. That's right.
I would say this is like food Stuff's throwback episode.
Oh it's we reference essentially everything we've ever talked about, yes,
and future episodes that we are going to talk about.
So we gave ourselves so much homework. We really did,
(06:53):
and you as well. You're welcome. Yea, Okay, So let's
start out with what the heck are these things? Lauren? Well,
artificial flavors are mixtures of chemical compounds that mimic the
flavor and or scent of certain foods, sometimes because they're
the same compounds that naturally appear in those foods. Right,
(07:13):
And a quick note here, the f d A has
no legal definition of natural when it comes to food
in the United States. UM marketers are allowed to use
that term willy nilly as long as the product doesn't
contain any added colors, synthetic substances, or yep, artificial flavors. However,
(07:34):
apart from knowing those things are in there, you don't
really know what is in there when it says natural. Yeah,
they do have a definition for flavor that whose significant
function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. A natural
flavor is one that comes from a plant or animal,
but that can include bacteria and yeast, and artificial flavor
(07:55):
is one that's produced in a lab via chemical and
or mechanical processes. Um. And note that an artificial flavor
and a natural flavor can be molecularly identical. It's just
how you got that compound. So artificial flavors show up
in a lot of things processed food and drinks. You know,
(08:18):
your ramen and your soda pop and weird chips and
dessert themed vodka. Um as of of Americans grocery purchases
contained added flavors, but artificial flavors are also in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals,
hygiene products. You know, lip bomb, to cough syrup, to toothpaste,
to vitamins, to any kind of pill that's given a
(08:39):
sweet outer coating to help that medicine go down medicine. Man.
The folks who work in this industry are called flavor
chemists or flavorists, and their jobs are not easy. Only
about five hundred are certified by the Society of Flavor
Chemists worldwide. And their job is not easy because, okay,
like the calm pounds that make say a strawberry smell
(09:02):
and taste like a strawberry, are a lot of compounds,
and they're all working together in these strange and ephemeral ways.
And that's because the way that we smell and taste
things is complicated. The average adult has about ten thousand
taste buds, not just on your tongue, by the way,
a few are spread throughout the rest of your oral cavity.
And these are nerve endings that are triggered to send
(09:24):
signals to your brain when they interact with specific types
of molecules. These cells give you all kinds of levels
of sweet sour, bitter, salty, and savory sometimes called umami.
Then you've got other nerve cells throughout your oral and
nasal cavities that detect molecules that give us a sense
of chemical heat and cooling and tingling. You know, spicy,
(09:46):
hot or minty or mentholi stuff like that. Those same
cells also detect a stringency that's what tells your brain
that lemons or or dry wines taste not just sour,
but like physical puckery. Yeah, and then you've got all
faction are sent uh nerves and your nasal cavity alert
(10:06):
your brain when they interact with more other different molecules,
both from outside and inside your mouth. For strawberries, for example,
researchers have isolated over three hundred compounds that affect our
experience of smell and taste. For tomatoes, it's over four
D Wow. Also, even once you do isolate a bunch
(10:27):
of these compounds, it's not really all that useful unless
you can figure out a way to produce them cheaply
and in large quantities. In a lot of cases, we
don't know how the plants make these compounds to begin with,
so figuring out a way to produce them is hard.
It's very difficult, Yes, and it is a big industry.
One market estimate from lefting Well and Associates put the
(10:51):
total flavor and fragrance industry sales for at twenty four
billion dollars. And that's not like consumer purchase is that's
sales straight from the companies that produce these flavor incent
compounds to other companies that put them in stuff. That
is a hefty, hefty number, a hefty sum. My favorite
(11:12):
thing about artificial flavors um that I kind of did,
never thought about, is that in some cases it's like
you're tasting the past and speaking of the past. Let's
talk about history. But first let's take a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank
(11:41):
you sponsor, Yes, thank you. All right. So, the very
first iteration of artificial flavors were oils made from extracted
fragrances and flavors in ancient Egypt. Every Sinna or even Senna,
the Persian physician and philosopher, took this a step further
in the eleventh century. He realized that you could distill
(12:03):
oils by steaming the plant to get the oil. Whatever
you're trying to get and then let it condense back
to a liquid, sort of like what you would do
with alcohol. This innovation opened the doors for a lot
more flavors and sins. The first historical records we have
of artificial flavorings come out of the mid nineteenth century
(12:25):
the Crystal Palace Exhibition, London eighty one, all kinds of
scientific and technological advances on display for the public, including
artificially flavored candies for the sampling in pineapple, apple, pear,
and grape flavors. With industrialization and full swing, all of
(12:45):
these flavors were compounds discovered as accidental byproducts and other
scientific endeavors, and synthesized in labs. Similarly to artificial sweeteners.
Scientists doing other experiments maybe get a whip of of
something fruity and they thought to themselves, hmmmm, I bet
we could use this to flavor things. And these first
(13:07):
artificial flavors were generally single chemicals diluted with alcohol. Also
similar to artificial sweeteners, these flavors came from things you
might not suspect, like quote substances of intensely disgusting odor. Yeah,
and like I said about tasting a bit of the past,
(13:29):
thing we're going to be talking about some artificial flavors
that just don't taste like what they claim to be imitating.
And one is artificial cherry. Oh yeah. The cherry flavoring
found in most sodas and candies is more reminiscent of
wild cherries or cherry liqueur. And that's because when it
was first derived, it was this Esther method. And the
(13:52):
chemical behind cheap artificial cherry is benzalda hide, which is
also used in almond oil. I was reading about this
in an of view with artificial flavoring expert Nadia Brenstein,
and she described it as an heirloom or in heritage
flavor artificial flavor, which I kind of love. Yeah, yeah, huh.
(14:13):
That's that's why it doesn't taste at all. Like Okay,
I totally get the almond thing. As we mentioned in
our Vanilla episode vanill In, the compound behind Vanilla's flavor
was isolated in eighteen fifty eight by Nicola Theodore gobli Um.
It was the first artificial flavor that was derived from
the actual ingredient it was meant to mimic. Almost two
(14:36):
decades later, in eighteen seventy four, a pair of German
scientists by the names of Ferdinand Tianman and Wilhelm Harmon
used pine tree bark to synthesize vanillan. The very next year,
they opened the world's first vanillan factory, so that the
popular flavor was no longer going to empty your bank account.
We talked about that a lot in the Vanilla episode.
(14:57):
Should you like to listen to that? If you haven't already,
by the time this factory opened, you could get all
kinds of artificial fruit flavors. According to one writer in
eighteen sixty four, artificial essences of nearly every fruit are made,
some of which are absolutely perfect in their resemblance to
the real fruit essence, while others leave a great deal
to the imagination. That's one of those kind of like
(15:18):
backhanded compliment insult things. Yeah, you think it's going well
right up until then, in the eighteen sixties, a decade
before bananas were available in the US, people could purchase
artificially banana flavored candies. They were derived from a compound
found in the original commercialized banana grow Michelle, which is
(15:42):
why we call it fake banana. Or this seems to
be the general consensus, but not totally agreed upon in
the scientific community. Yeah, one researcher who looked into it
found no particular evidence that artificial banana flavoring came directly
from the grow Michelle. But he did find that the
grow Machell variety, which you can still get from a
(16:03):
few specialty growers in places like Hawaii, has a flavor
that's sweeter and more flat or or simple than today's
Cavendish banana. And this is scientific. Gas chromatography showed fewer
known flavor and or sent compounds in the grow Machelle,
so compared with the Cavendish banana, grow Machelle bananas taste
(16:26):
sort of artificial. Uh m, well, this brings us to
juicy fruit. What kind of fruit is juicy fruit? By
the way, no one knows. If you don't know what
juicy fruit is, it's the Wrigley's fruit gum that it's
an yellow package, or it was when I was a kid.
Uh uh, this is when it debuted. The interesting thing
(16:48):
here is it's got no clear flavor, and when you
taste it, you're like, yeah, that's juicy fruit, but you
don't know what fruit is. The juicy one we are
discussing is not specified and juicy fruit went all away
with it, going so far as to adopt the slogan
in the nineteen forties the gum with the fascinating artificial flavor,
(17:11):
m Well, they embraced it. As the century drew to
a close, you could find so many artificial fruit flavors.
The US, Canada, France, Britain and Germany used them, and
all sorts of things like candy jams or drug store soda.
They seemed to be doing a pretty decent job at
the flavor part too. When a Massachusetts Board of Health
(17:35):
inspector came asking around about these things in the eighteen seventies,
what's going on here? A soda vendor told him customers
cannot distinguish the artificial from the true fruit flavors. However,
not everybody agreed, including Charles Soul's, the author of a
eight soda and Beverage handbook that included this note, no
(17:57):
amount of chemical skill can imitate the fine flavors of
many fruits. I like that quote just because it has
a lot of fs in it. But then we get
to the US Pure Food and Drug Act in six
thanks in part two, hines that hines, Yes, that hines
(18:18):
catch up Hines absolutely, and we have a catchup episode
in the works, and he is fascinating, So look for that.
Look for that an upcoming episode. There's all this concern
about artificial flavors being part of the problem of masking
the problem. Specifically, it's like rotting food or especially rotting food,
(18:39):
kind of like non food food ingredients. Yeah, basically tricking
you into eating something that you weren't eating. Yeah. After
President Roosevelt um past the Pure Food and Drug Act,
anything containing imitation in quotes flavors had to be labeled
as such. This, the codified differentiation between genuine and in
(19:00):
autation foods, was the first statutory distinction in the US.
If the flavor came from the actual thing, it was genuine.
If it was synthetically derived, then it was imitation. Artificial
flavor manufacturers smarter the bit at this. I can imagine
not the law necessarily, but the fact that they were
(19:20):
being called impure or dangerous. The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers
Association launched a campaign in nineteen to improve their negative
image and what they viewed as an unfair association with
quote adulterators, food poisoners, and drug dopesters. Some like chemists
(19:41):
Allois von Isaacovis believed the law improved sales and that
synthetics could be better than the real thing. Just to
point out, artificial, artificially produced compounds can actually be more
pure and safe than naturally produced ones due to you know,
when you've got iological organisms creating stuff for you. They
(20:02):
they're organisms, and their stuff can vary. Right when you're
doing it in a lab, you have the opportunity to
really isolate it out. This is true either way. Um. Meanwhile,
in eight a Japanese chemist unlocked an easy way to
convey savory flavor through food. Monosodium glutamate m S. G
Akita isolated MSG as the compound in c KELP that
(20:27):
gives an extra depth of flavor to kombudashi. Broth And
coined the term um mommy to describe it, derived from
a colloquial word for tasty. Uh so yes u mommy
is a nineteen odds marketing term. Anyway. Uh MSG went
on the market in nineteen o nine as a food
(20:47):
supplement that could make bland but nutritious food more appealing.
Now that was a hope anyway, after aggressive educational marketing,
it really caught on with upper middle class housewives and
spread to Taiwan, China, and the United States over the
next couple of decades as an inexpensive and vegetarian alternative
to using pricey animal products in cooking, although it was
(21:09):
a household product in Asia and it was mostly an
industrial and restaurant ingredient over here in the States. Right
More on that later. Sometime around n a fellow who
worked out he worked out He worked with the flavor
extracts for soda past a woman whose perfume was a
(21:29):
dead ringer for concord grapes. He was able to track
down the chemical behind the fragrance, and he discovered they
were already using it in Germany and Austria as orange
blossom essence. That's because they had a different type of
grape than the concord, with a different flavor and smell. Interestingly,
(21:50):
this was a long time before scientists actually knew that
this was a flavor chemical in grapes. Yeah, and some
flavors are easier to figure out than others. One that
is apparently notoriously difficult is coffee. In the nineteen twenties,
Dutch chemists isolated a compound called diocetle that imparted a
(22:10):
buttery flavor to foods. It's produced naturally by the lactic
acid bacteria at work in some alcohols like chardonnay and
also in cultured butter. Makes sense. As industrialization gripped the
dairy industry, creamery's started using this artificial diceetle to standardize
their butter or to cut corners by skipping the culturation
(22:31):
step entirely. More on that in our butter episode and
our popcorn episode. Yeah all the throwbacks. Also in the
nineteen twenties, chemists at the U. S d A Tried
to nail down artificial apple flavor from a ton of apples,
not like an actual ton. Uh. They were only able
to extract less than two grams of usable stuff, and
(22:54):
from there they isolated five chemicals which you can find.
It was part of the public domain since it was
government research. Flavor science is complicated. Most flavor compounds held
by companies are proprietary. One of the best examples of
these secret flavorings was peach, first perfected in the Cincinnati
(23:16):
area by a firm called Fries and Fries. Everyone was
trying to figure out their secret uh and the cat
came out of the bag when a flavored chemist learned
that they discovered one of the compounds accidentally after a
mishap and castor oil production resulted in the entire factory
smelling like peaches. I mean, of the things that could
happen after, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's the best possible mistake. Yeah,
(23:41):
and um. Another chemical component in their peach flavoring was
discovered after somebody left a piece of cheese soaked an
owl call down in the basement next to the furnace.
Whether on purpose or by accident, the article did not specify.
Huh the iPad. Someone might just leapt is cheese down there.
Oh yeah, just accidentally dropped piece of cheese. And they're beer.
(24:05):
I've not known, the world will never know. Another weird
fact that I love. Um. People seem to think that
red drinks are sweeter than nod red drinks in taste tests,
regardless of whether or not they actually are, just because
we associate red with certain flavors. Um. Oh, and unless
SODA's purple, most folks can't tell you after tasting it
(24:28):
that it's great flavored. They need that perfect need the
purple indicator. They don't recognize the flavor without the color. Yeah,
this is one of those things that there's a difference
between flavor and taste. Taste is the literal thing that's
happening with your taste buds, and flavor is all that
other stuff. Yeah s, sound, etcetera. Yeah. So at this
point in our timeline, uh, the the industry is actually
(24:49):
about to get a lot easier to work in due
to a technological innovation, which we will talk about when
we get back from one last break for a word
from our sponsor and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So
(25:11):
the entire flavor industry would get a serious boost when
chromatography technology advanced in the nineteen forties and fifties. The
first gas chromatographs were produced commercially later that decade. Scientists
going back to the beginning of the twentieth century had
been investigating ways to separate out and identify compounds that
make up various substances. And it turns out that if
(25:34):
you heat a sample of something to the point that
it vaporizes, and then pass that vapor through a column
of liquid, all the chemical components from the sample will
interact with the liquid and the sides of this column
slightly differently because of their inherent molecular properties, sort of
like like runners of different speeds. These chemicals will separate
(25:56):
themselves out from one another as they flow through this chamber,
and then you can use a chemical detector of one
kind or another to figure out what each of those
compounds is. So suddenly chemists had a relatively inexpensive way
to like automatically detect chemicals from stuff. You didn't need
like tremendous training to use this machine. You could start
(26:19):
identifying the compounds and products that may or may not
give them their flavor, may or may not, may or
may not. Doors are opening, they are. And as mass
production of food and nationalization of products took off, so
did the need to add back in flavor that was
lost in mass production and to have a product with
(26:39):
a consistent flavor a cost country and even around the world.
More and more foods were processed, and therefore more and
more foods were artificially flavored. The first flavored potato chips
from Irish company Potato came out in the nineteen fifties
with Falton vinegar and cheese and onion varieties. On US
(27:00):
grocery shelves, you'd find barbecue, are Sarah cream and onion.
This was the time that grocery stores were really taking
off and so many products were competing to end up
in the American shoppers cart. Having a memorable flavor was
a big part of that. In seven, a VP at
General Mills, Oh yeah that General Mills said that flavors
(27:21):
should serve quote as a built in trademark which will
invariably be identified with its brand name and its producer.
In the nineteen fifties, the slogan of a popular um
fragrance and flavor brand was nothing sells like flavor and
that it was the silent salesman. I know. The Food
(27:42):
Drug and Cosmetics Act got a makeover. That's when the
list of generally Recognized as Safe g r a s
was introduced in the US, and it meant that manufacturers,
if they wanted to be on that list, had to
prove they were worthy of the designation. And it made
things easier for the f d a UM and for
(28:03):
companies wanting to use the ingredients on the list, including
those in the artificial flavoring category. Wow, but artificial flavors
were not immune to the same health concerns that impacted
artificial sweeteners. In ninety three, a compound that had been
used as part of artificial sweeteners and vanilla, called kumarin
(28:24):
was taken off the market voluntarily by companies after a
study came out linking it to liver damage in rats.
Of flavoring in root beer called saffrol was removed this
way to That same year, the Food Additives Amendment passed,
but as it happened, the f D a bit off,
a bit more than it could show. There were more
(28:47):
than a thousand chemicals in these additives for them to
test a lot of them and were present in really
small amounts. So the FDA raised his hands and was like, oh,
you know, Gay, we'll just ague at your word. For
most of these, they allowed the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers
Association to decide what should be tested, and as you
(29:08):
can imagine, they were pretty laxed about the whole thing.
This is still the arrangement today and as often there
were over three thousand chemical additives on the generally recognized
a safe list, although in nineteen sixty eight and sixty
nine controversy over the safety of artificial sweeteners sacharin and
cyclomate prompted President Nixon to order an FDA review of
(29:31):
all the additives on its g R A S list.
Amidst all of this, in nineteen sixty eight, a Chinese
American doctor wrote a speculative letter for the New England
Journal of Medicine, a sort of thinking out loud piece
about effects that he had anecdotally noticed after eating at
Chinese restaurants, including stuff like heart palpitations, and the journal
(29:52):
labeled this Chinese restaurant syndrome. Although the doctor brought up
a whole list of possible culprits, from like heed to
wind duck sauce, too imported mushrooms, the press latched on
to the item on the list that was an unnatural
additive MSG. Yeah, there was no conclusive research about its effects,
(30:13):
but the press and the public rallied against it, and
some factions in Japan picked up the battle cry. One
writer who was promoting in general a return to natural
foods when as far as saying the frightening thing about
processed foods made by large corporations, in addition to the
toxicity of the large quantities of food additives used, is
(30:35):
that they caused the spiritual ruin of Japanese women. What
his His idea here was the cooking healthy meals for
your family as a form of prayer and a road
to internal peace. And yeah, apparently additives like MSG can
just ruin that. I had no idea. We talked a
little bit about MSG in our episode on Ramen, but
(30:58):
to reiterate here, research published in two thousand and six
that reviewed almost forty years worth of research studies found
no serious side effects or sensitivities in humans at large
to the amount of m SG that you could possibly
consume through food, like maybe headache or dry mouth if
you're eating on an empty stomach and you're not probably
(31:19):
properly hydrated. But the the only really bad effects that
any researcher has ever found about MSG were when they
injected it into mice. Don't don't inject yourself with MSG.
Food stuff another trace of advice from food stuff. We're
here to help, we are. We will have to do
(31:39):
a whole episode though sometimes on MSG. It's it's a
really fascinating story. It's one of those terrific corporate efforts
that that took off extremely well and had some dips,
and yeah, it's great. Yeah, I'm excited to return to that.
The diet foods that really started to take off from
the sixties and seventies necessitated all of artificial flavorings so
(32:02):
that they didn't taste so still so boring and the
words of this ad Providing taste appeal for foods lacking
either sugar or salt, and sometimes both is an extremely
difficult problem, and flavor differences in some degree are inevitable. However,
the flavor chemists can, by diligent research, provide an acceptable
flavor of such foods. Like acceptable, that's such a low bar.
(32:27):
It's kind of true, though, oh yeah, absolutely. Some things
I read suggested companies designed artificial flavors to lack an aftertaste,
which encouraged you to eat more of their product. And
I don't know how true that is. I didn't have
time to like dig into it, but I have heard
similar things recently, so I thought i'd mentioned it. Another
thing we have to come back to. This episode is
(32:47):
full of like this path, this path, this path, Oh yeah,
to choose your own adventure. In the nineteen seventies, the
chemical synthesis of Vanillen pushed ahead with new ways to
chip cheaply, not simply cheaply. Some size of vanillin from
various chemical precursors, including guaya cole, which is a byproduct
of the petroleum industry, and lingnan, which is a byproduct
(33:09):
of the wood and paper industries. These methods of production
of synthesis are cheap, but they're not always great environmentally speaking. Um,
you've got to use some hazardous solvents and other chemicals
to produce and purify your vanillen for lignant. For example,
every kilo of vanillan that you make creates a hundred
and sixty kilos of waste that you have to figure
(33:31):
out how to safely dispose of, and products that use
these synthesized vanillans have to be labeled artificial, which consumers
don't always like. Those finicky consumers. Of course, we should say.
Natural flavors can also take an environmental toll. Agriculture uses
tremendous amounts of resources and can use harmful chemicals too. Um.
(33:52):
That's why traditionally, artificial flavors have been so much cheaper
than natural flavors until in two thousand and nine, researchers
were able to make a type of yeast that makes
vanilla flavored bacteria foop after feasting on sugar it excretes vanillan.
This means they can technically label it as natural. This
(34:16):
natural vanillan went on sale in the US, but not
without controversy, especially from the anti GMO crowd. Other obligatory note,
there's no reason to distrust genetically modified foods and food
products as a whole. It's actually a super impressive feat
to get yeast in bacteria to create vanilla plants make
it as an anti microbial. Its whole job in plants
(34:39):
is to not is to kill bacteria, so it tends
to be toxic to microbes. That's pretty pretty neat. Yeah,
but yeah, there's there's a lot of bacteria and yeast
being genetically modified and and farmed to produce natural flavors
these days. Yes, and their next goal is I bet
you can guess, engineer a natural calorie free sugar. Yeah,
(35:04):
and they have a lot of funding behind them to succeed.
Um and here, Yeah, this finally brings us to the
most important question. Yes, what the heck is blue raspberry?
What is it? Why is it blue? I don't know,
actually I do. This is the thing that like I
really wanted to know in this whole episode. Okay, the
(35:29):
answer takes us back to the summers of the early
nine I remember them not at all. Oh, but I
can imagine on these hot summer days, kids were reaching
for a cool treat in the form of flavor ice
pops or otter pops. And yet those are the clear
tubes of icy sugar that have probably been in your
(35:50):
freezer since you've owned one. You don't know how they
got there there there though, Yeah, we've got some in
our freezer. I have no idea really, yeah. Um. The
problem with these ice pops is that they were limited
to four flavors at the time, cherry, strawberry, watermelon, and raspberry,
all of which are shades of red, and it made
(36:10):
it kind of hard to differentiate between flavors. Hard but doable.
And the f d A came out with research suggesting
red number two, the die responsible for the red color,
was very bad for your health. So these popsicle companies
switched it up, um, using different dyes to get the
shades of red and pink. But these new dyes were
(36:33):
either more expensive and or possibly worse for you health wise. Um,
the popsicles, I guess I should say pops ice pups
companies set their eyes on. An alternative at the time,
the blue raspberry flavored icy. You know those frozen eated
fun things, right, that's they're saying, I didn't come up
with that frozenated frozen ated fun h Okay, you get
(36:57):
him a like, yeah, movie theaters or gas stations. Yeah. Um.
They had been out on the scene since nineteen seventy.
It was basically a raspberry flavored icy, but died blue
with F D and C number one instead of red
with red number two. And actually the flavor behind blue
(37:19):
raspberry is more similar to BlackBerry, something called white bark raspberry.
Still though that berry isn't blue. Um, it's the reddish purple,
and it does take on a bluish hue when ripe,
but it's definitely not blue raspberry. Blue white bark raspberry
flavor plus F D and C blue number one equals
(37:40):
blue raspberry. The color was chosen in part because children
are drawn to bright colors um, as observed in the
case of lemonade versus pink lemonade sales. Apparently pink lemonade
way out cells lemonade UM. Once the popsicle companies started
selling pops of this flavor, it became a regular one
(38:01):
of the greatest mysteries of life. So oh and by
the way, one thirty two millions sixteen ounce blue raspberry
ices are consumed every year in the US. Oh yeah,
that's a lot. Um, We've shot her speechless. She had
to sit back in her chair to take a break
(38:22):
after that one. All right. Back in the early two thousands,
consumers kind of kind of took up this redde number
two rally again UM and started pushing back against artificial
ingredients UM based on those nineteen seventies studies and a
couple other newer ones that were linking UM artificial colors
(38:44):
and preservatives to hyperactive behavior in children. And if you'll remember,
this was when a d D and a d h
D were the huge concerns. Everyone was, you know, like,
is mine, does my child have this affliction? How will
they survive? Not that it's not a big certain it
certainly is, and it's anyway. UM. Huge corporations took notice
of this and began research to replace these artificial ingredients
(39:06):
to retain their marketability, and Nestle Company made the trend
official in when they announced that they would be removing
and replacing all artificial color flavors and preservatives in their
entire line of confections in the UK, that is Nest.
The USA would make the same announcement a couple of
years later. The movement just hooked up with the Whole
(39:28):
like organic Whole Foods health blog kind of trend and snowballed. Yeah,
and then we talked about that in our Cheddar episode
of Macaroni and Cheese getting rid of it, and so
many um companies now are trying to get rid of
and again it's not unfortunately like like more research needs
to be done to see whether or not these things
(39:50):
are actually harmful. But yeah, I guess it's driving our
important chemists industry. Yeah, those flavor is hard work out there.
You've got your work cut out for you. This episode
has so many, so many things I want to look
in two more and including this. I read a company
(40:10):
in London is trying to bring three course dinner chewing
gum from Charlie and the Chocolate factory to life, obviously
with the help of artificial flavoring future fictional foods. Oh
my god, why haven't we thought about a Willie Walk episode? Yet? Okay, yes,
I know, And and then I thought of deff beer
from The Simpsons, and I added that to the last two.
Our list is ever growing excellent. Yes, this brings us
(40:34):
to the end of um artificial flavoring, with a little
note that there's many things we must return to. Yes,
I'm particularly interested in color, the association with color and food.
That was so fascinating. Color psychology is always really great
to look into. Yes, and that brings us to the
(40:54):
end of this classic episode. We hope you enjoyed it, um,
and also if you're doing any I was just thinking
about this today because I my baking project of the
holidays is usually I was trying to think of when
I use artificial flavors. It's usually gingerbread cookies, and I'll
do a like icing and dies and candies and so
(41:18):
it's not as much artificial flavoring. So I was just
trying to think of things. But you listeners, we always
love to hear about whatever baking or cooking projects you
are embarking on. Oh oh, absolutely, and I'm sure that
y'all are getting up to some um, some really spectacular ones. Um.
We are also pulling together the the mail for the
(41:40):
last listener mail of one I know, yes, so so yeah,
so now is now is the time? If if you
have something to send to us? Yes for ninth listener
Mail episode of which I'm already work shopping the titles,
but you probably know what will be what it will be? Yes,
(42:01):
please please please send us your notes and letters. You
can email us at Hello at savor pod dot com.
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is production of
I Heart Radio four more podcasts from my Heart Radio.
You can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(42:22):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heeart Radio.
I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have a classic episode for you about artificial flavorings. Yes,
and this is uh can we call it oldie but
a goodie? I sure it's yeah, it's fun. It originally
aired in um February of Wow, Yeah, wow, yes, um,
(00:35):
And interestingly enough, I love it. I love it when
your listeners ask me these questions as if it's very
important to you. But I believe I mentioned in this
episode that artificial flavoring is one of the wide categories
of food that I kind of cheat and say I
don't like artificial flavors fruit artificial flavors, right, And I've
(01:00):
had a couple of listeners right in with follow up questions. Yeah,
and I'm only too happy to go into it. Um
oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't like fruit artificial flavoring,
and I actually don't. I actually think I might because
one of the other ones is carible. Um, and I
(01:22):
actually think my bigger problem might be or whatever, which
is also I think part of the doctor Pepper thing,
which I also I despise more than anything. I can't
put into words how much I hate Dr pepper. Wow.
(01:45):
I I don't despise flavor. Usually if I dislike a food,
it's a texture issue more than a flavor issue. Um.
There are a couple of foods like I think I
talked about in the chestnuts episode, which I forgot that
we did, um until and trying to do that to me.
I would I put it on the schedule for us
to do an episode about, and she was like, nah, no, dude,
(02:07):
it's a very sad story. Um. But but no, they
they're they're yeah, like like like chestnuts, I just like
because they taste a little bit too rich to me.
But even that, I'm kind of getting over. I don't
understand this severe version that you have. I wish I
could like this. It's a physical like my whole body
(02:29):
is like no, yeah, nope, yeh know it like makes
you angry, it does. I'm getting a little heeded talking
about um, but I do. It's funny because it is
one of those things I do like talking about. I
really appreciate when you listen or like I'm just like
a scientist taking notes, like like, well, just curious because
(02:52):
there's something I'm sure I'm fine with I've definitely had
some and I'm you know, just okay. But and a
lot of it is more not the Dr Pepper level
of hate. It's just like I would never I would
rather not eat it. I would never choose to eat it,
seek it out. If someone offers it to me, I
will say no. It's not like that level, at visceral level. Um,
(03:15):
but it is interesting. I don't I don't know what's
going on either. And that's one of the things that
fascinates me about humans in general, is why they like
what they like and why they don't like what they
don't like. Yeah, it's um, you know, we are we
are all our own little little mysteries, just just booping
around the universe being mysterious to ourselves as well. You're right.
(03:42):
I like that we are all our own little mysteries. Um.
But this one, this one a lot of mysteries and
a lot of interesting historical taste facts. I just thought
about how people think like it should taste, for instance. Yeah, no,
(04:02):
and then right right, this was a really fun one
in terms of science. Um, I get really riled up
a few times in it. Uh. As always, we did
a super brief like oh man has there been any
wacky news about artificial flavoring um and and people are
still mad that it's artificial, and that's you know, and
you know again we're see above, we where all our
(04:26):
own mysteries. And if yeah, I don't personally see scientifically speaking,
a reason to be that angry about it, well, I
only see it in terms of my friends tricking me
into drinking and drink that I despise. But yes, scientifically
(04:49):
i'm generally, but you're not. You're not like out there
like lobbying against dr pepper. You're like, no one should
drink dr pepper. You're not like set it on fire?
Are like that? Why have I never thought of? No? No,
I want people to like what they like. Most most
(05:09):
everyone I know loves it um like. That's not even exaggeration.
I'm pretty sure most everyone I know loves it UM.
So I would never deprive someone just because I have
an issue that's very personal. There's no science involved other
than my example study of one. But yes, yes, you
(05:30):
are correct, Like would you like go Ford, go for it,
go forth and drink this thing that Annie viscerally despises.
I don't know how it's turned into this. I think
we're going to get a note from our advertising at people.
No longer a sponsor, no longer for for For the record,
(05:51):
I do love Dr Pepper, so I, oh, let's because
I always do this. I just have to draw griptic kids.
But alas, the episode is not about this one specific products.
It's not. It's not. We've gone on quite a long
time now about something that's this episode, right, is not
(06:12):
about So so let us get into that episode and
I'll let former Annie and Lauren take it away. Hello,
and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogel Bump and
(06:32):
Diamond Eries, and today we're talking about artificial flavor. That's right.
I would say this is like food Stuff's throwback episode.
Oh it's we reference essentially everything we've ever talked about, yes,
and future episodes that we are going to talk about.
So we gave ourselves so much homework. We really did,
(06:53):
and you as well. You're welcome. Yea, Okay, So let's
start out with what the heck are these things? Lauren? Well,
artificial flavors are mixtures of chemical compounds that mimic the
flavor and or scent of certain foods, sometimes because they're
the same compounds that naturally appear in those foods. Right,
(07:13):
And a quick note here, the f d A has
no legal definition of natural when it comes to food
in the United States. UM marketers are allowed to use
that term willy nilly as long as the product doesn't
contain any added colors, synthetic substances, or yep, artificial flavors. However,
(07:34):
apart from knowing those things are in there, you don't
really know what is in there when it says natural. Yeah,
they do have a definition for flavor that whose significant
function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. A natural
flavor is one that comes from a plant or animal,
but that can include bacteria and yeast, and artificial flavor
(07:55):
is one that's produced in a lab via chemical and
or mechanical processes. Um. And note that an artificial flavor
and a natural flavor can be molecularly identical. It's just
how you got that compound. So artificial flavors show up
in a lot of things processed food and drinks. You know,
(08:18):
your ramen and your soda pop and weird chips and
dessert themed vodka. Um as of of Americans grocery purchases
contained added flavors, but artificial flavors are also in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals,
hygiene products. You know, lip bomb, to cough syrup, to toothpaste,
to vitamins, to any kind of pill that's given a
(08:39):
sweet outer coating to help that medicine go down medicine. Man.
The folks who work in this industry are called flavor
chemists or flavorists, and their jobs are not easy. Only
about five hundred are certified by the Society of Flavor
Chemists worldwide. And their job is not easy because, okay,
like the calm pounds that make say a strawberry smell
(09:02):
and taste like a strawberry, are a lot of compounds,
and they're all working together in these strange and ephemeral ways.
And that's because the way that we smell and taste
things is complicated. The average adult has about ten thousand
taste buds, not just on your tongue, by the way,
a few are spread throughout the rest of your oral cavity.
And these are nerve endings that are triggered to send
(09:24):
signals to your brain when they interact with specific types
of molecules. These cells give you all kinds of levels
of sweet sour, bitter, salty, and savory sometimes called umami.
Then you've got other nerve cells throughout your oral and
nasal cavities that detect molecules that give us a sense
of chemical heat and cooling and tingling. You know, spicy,
(09:46):
hot or minty or mentholi stuff like that. Those same
cells also detect a stringency that's what tells your brain
that lemons or or dry wines taste not just sour,
but like physical puckery. Yeah, and then you've got all
faction are sent uh nerves and your nasal cavity alert
(10:06):
your brain when they interact with more other different molecules,
both from outside and inside your mouth. For strawberries, for example,
researchers have isolated over three hundred compounds that affect our
experience of smell and taste. For tomatoes, it's over four
D Wow. Also, even once you do isolate a bunch
(10:27):
of these compounds, it's not really all that useful unless
you can figure out a way to produce them cheaply
and in large quantities. In a lot of cases, we
don't know how the plants make these compounds to begin with,
so figuring out a way to produce them is hard.
It's very difficult, Yes, and it is a big industry.
One market estimate from lefting Well and Associates put the
(10:51):
total flavor and fragrance industry sales for at twenty four
billion dollars. And that's not like consumer purchase is that's
sales straight from the companies that produce these flavor incent
compounds to other companies that put them in stuff. That
is a hefty, hefty number, a hefty sum. My favorite
(11:12):
thing about artificial flavors um that I kind of did,
never thought about, is that in some cases it's like
you're tasting the past and speaking of the past. Let's
talk about history. But first let's take a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank
(11:41):
you sponsor, Yes, thank you. All right. So, the very
first iteration of artificial flavors were oils made from extracted
fragrances and flavors in ancient Egypt. Every Sinna or even Senna,
the Persian physician and philosopher, took this a step further
in the eleventh century. He realized that you could distill
(12:03):
oils by steaming the plant to get the oil. Whatever
you're trying to get and then let it condense back
to a liquid, sort of like what you would do
with alcohol. This innovation opened the doors for a lot
more flavors and sins. The first historical records we have
of artificial flavorings come out of the mid nineteenth century
(12:25):
the Crystal Palace Exhibition, London eighty one, all kinds of
scientific and technological advances on display for the public, including
artificially flavored candies for the sampling in pineapple, apple, pear,
and grape flavors. With industrialization and full swing, all of
(12:45):
these flavors were compounds discovered as accidental byproducts and other
scientific endeavors, and synthesized in labs. Similarly to artificial sweeteners.
Scientists doing other experiments maybe get a whip of of
something fruity and they thought to themselves, hmmmm, I bet
we could use this to flavor things. And these first
(13:07):
artificial flavors were generally single chemicals diluted with alcohol. Also
similar to artificial sweeteners, these flavors came from things you
might not suspect, like quote substances of intensely disgusting odor. Yeah,
and like I said about tasting a bit of the past,
(13:29):
thing we're going to be talking about some artificial flavors
that just don't taste like what they claim to be imitating.
And one is artificial cherry. Oh yeah. The cherry flavoring
found in most sodas and candies is more reminiscent of
wild cherries or cherry liqueur. And that's because when it
was first derived, it was this Esther method. And the
(13:52):
chemical behind cheap artificial cherry is benzalda hide, which is
also used in almond oil. I was reading about this
in an of view with artificial flavoring expert Nadia Brenstein,
and she described it as an heirloom or in heritage
flavor artificial flavor, which I kind of love. Yeah, yeah, huh.
(14:13):
That's that's why it doesn't taste at all. Like Okay,
I totally get the almond thing. As we mentioned in
our Vanilla episode vanill In, the compound behind Vanilla's flavor
was isolated in eighteen fifty eight by Nicola Theodore gobli Um.
It was the first artificial flavor that was derived from
the actual ingredient it was meant to mimic. Almost two
(14:36):
decades later, in eighteen seventy four, a pair of German
scientists by the names of Ferdinand Tianman and Wilhelm Harmon
used pine tree bark to synthesize vanillan. The very next year,
they opened the world's first vanillan factory, so that the
popular flavor was no longer going to empty your bank account.
We talked about that a lot in the Vanilla episode.
(14:57):
Should you like to listen to that? If you haven't already,
by the time this factory opened, you could get all
kinds of artificial fruit flavors. According to one writer in
eighteen sixty four, artificial essences of nearly every fruit are made,
some of which are absolutely perfect in their resemblance to
the real fruit essence, while others leave a great deal
to the imagination. That's one of those kind of like
(15:18):
backhanded compliment insult things. Yeah, you think it's going well
right up until then, in the eighteen sixties, a decade
before bananas were available in the US, people could purchase
artificially banana flavored candies. They were derived from a compound
found in the original commercialized banana grow Michelle, which is
(15:42):
why we call it fake banana. Or this seems to
be the general consensus, but not totally agreed upon in
the scientific community. Yeah, one researcher who looked into it
found no particular evidence that artificial banana flavoring came directly
from the grow Michelle. But he did find that the
grow Machell variety, which you can still get from a
(16:03):
few specialty growers in places like Hawaii, has a flavor
that's sweeter and more flat or or simple than today's
Cavendish banana. And this is scientific. Gas chromatography showed fewer
known flavor and or sent compounds in the grow Machelle,
so compared with the Cavendish banana, grow Machelle bananas taste
(16:26):
sort of artificial. Uh m, well, this brings us to
juicy fruit. What kind of fruit is juicy fruit? By
the way, no one knows. If you don't know what
juicy fruit is, it's the Wrigley's fruit gum that it's
an yellow package, or it was when I was a kid.
Uh uh, this is when it debuted. The interesting thing
(16:48):
here is it's got no clear flavor, and when you
taste it, you're like, yeah, that's juicy fruit, but you
don't know what fruit is. The juicy one we are
discussing is not specified and juicy fruit went all away
with it, going so far as to adopt the slogan
in the nineteen forties the gum with the fascinating artificial flavor,
(17:11):
m Well, they embraced it. As the century drew to
a close, you could find so many artificial fruit flavors.
The US, Canada, France, Britain and Germany used them, and
all sorts of things like candy jams or drug store soda.
They seemed to be doing a pretty decent job at
the flavor part too. When a Massachusetts Board of Health
(17:35):
inspector came asking around about these things in the eighteen seventies,
what's going on here? A soda vendor told him customers
cannot distinguish the artificial from the true fruit flavors. However,
not everybody agreed, including Charles Soul's, the author of a
eight soda and Beverage handbook that included this note, no
(17:57):
amount of chemical skill can imitate the fine flavors of
many fruits. I like that quote just because it has
a lot of fs in it. But then we get
to the US Pure Food and Drug Act in six
thanks in part two, hines that hines, Yes, that hines
(18:18):
catch up Hines absolutely, and we have a catchup episode
in the works, and he is fascinating, So look for that.
Look for that an upcoming episode. There's all this concern
about artificial flavors being part of the problem of masking
the problem. Specifically, it's like rotting food or especially rotting food,
(18:39):
kind of like non food food ingredients. Yeah, basically tricking
you into eating something that you weren't eating. Yeah. After
President Roosevelt um past the Pure Food and Drug Act,
anything containing imitation in quotes flavors had to be labeled
as such. This, the codified differentiation between genuine and in
(19:00):
autation foods, was the first statutory distinction in the US.
If the flavor came from the actual thing, it was genuine.
If it was synthetically derived, then it was imitation. Artificial
flavor manufacturers smarter the bit at this. I can imagine
not the law necessarily, but the fact that they were
(19:20):
being called impure or dangerous. The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers
Association launched a campaign in nineteen to improve their negative
image and what they viewed as an unfair association with
quote adulterators, food poisoners, and drug dopesters. Some like chemists
(19:41):
Allois von Isaacovis believed the law improved sales and that
synthetics could be better than the real thing. Just to
point out, artificial, artificially produced compounds can actually be more
pure and safe than naturally produced ones due to you know,
when you've got iological organisms creating stuff for you. They
(20:02):
they're organisms, and their stuff can vary. Right when you're
doing it in a lab, you have the opportunity to
really isolate it out. This is true either way. Um. Meanwhile,
in eight a Japanese chemist unlocked an easy way to
convey savory flavor through food. Monosodium glutamate m S. G
Akita isolated MSG as the compound in c KELP that
(20:27):
gives an extra depth of flavor to kombudashi. Broth And
coined the term um mommy to describe it, derived from
a colloquial word for tasty. Uh so yes u mommy
is a nineteen odds marketing term. Anyway. Uh MSG went
on the market in nineteen o nine as a food
(20:47):
supplement that could make bland but nutritious food more appealing.
Now that was a hope anyway, after aggressive educational marketing,
it really caught on with upper middle class housewives and
spread to Taiwan, China, and the United States over the
next couple of decades as an inexpensive and vegetarian alternative
to using pricey animal products in cooking, although it was
(21:09):
a household product in Asia and it was mostly an
industrial and restaurant ingredient over here in the States. Right
More on that later. Sometime around n a fellow who
worked out he worked out He worked with the flavor
extracts for soda past a woman whose perfume was a
(21:29):
dead ringer for concord grapes. He was able to track
down the chemical behind the fragrance, and he discovered they
were already using it in Germany and Austria as orange
blossom essence. That's because they had a different type of
grape than the concord, with a different flavor and smell. Interestingly,
(21:50):
this was a long time before scientists actually knew that
this was a flavor chemical in grapes. Yeah, and some
flavors are easier to figure out than others. One that
is apparently notoriously difficult is coffee. In the nineteen twenties,
Dutch chemists isolated a compound called diocetle that imparted a
(22:10):
buttery flavor to foods. It's produced naturally by the lactic
acid bacteria at work in some alcohols like chardonnay and
also in cultured butter. Makes sense. As industrialization gripped the
dairy industry, creamery's started using this artificial diceetle to standardize
their butter or to cut corners by skipping the culturation
(22:31):
step entirely. More on that in our butter episode and
our popcorn episode. Yeah all the throwbacks. Also in the
nineteen twenties, chemists at the U. S d A Tried
to nail down artificial apple flavor from a ton of apples,
not like an actual ton. Uh. They were only able
to extract less than two grams of usable stuff, and
(22:54):
from there they isolated five chemicals which you can find.
It was part of the public domain since it was
government research. Flavor science is complicated. Most flavor compounds held
by companies are proprietary. One of the best examples of
these secret flavorings was peach, first perfected in the Cincinnati
(23:16):
area by a firm called Fries and Fries. Everyone was
trying to figure out their secret uh and the cat
came out of the bag when a flavored chemist learned
that they discovered one of the compounds accidentally after a
mishap and castor oil production resulted in the entire factory
smelling like peaches. I mean, of the things that could
happen after, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's the best possible mistake. Yeah,
(23:41):
and um. Another chemical component in their peach flavoring was
discovered after somebody left a piece of cheese soaked an
owl call down in the basement next to the furnace.
Whether on purpose or by accident, the article did not specify.
Huh the iPad. Someone might just leapt is cheese down there.
Oh yeah, just accidentally dropped piece of cheese. And they're beer.
(24:05):
I've not known, the world will never know. Another weird
fact that I love. Um. People seem to think that
red drinks are sweeter than nod red drinks in taste tests,
regardless of whether or not they actually are, just because
we associate red with certain flavors. Um. Oh, and unless
SODA's purple, most folks can't tell you after tasting it
(24:28):
that it's great flavored. They need that perfect need the
purple indicator. They don't recognize the flavor without the color. Yeah,
this is one of those things that there's a difference
between flavor and taste. Taste is the literal thing that's
happening with your taste buds, and flavor is all that
other stuff. Yeah s, sound, etcetera. Yeah. So at this
point in our timeline, uh, the the industry is actually
(24:49):
about to get a lot easier to work in due
to a technological innovation, which we will talk about when
we get back from one last break for a word
from our sponsor and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So
(25:11):
the entire flavor industry would get a serious boost when
chromatography technology advanced in the nineteen forties and fifties. The
first gas chromatographs were produced commercially later that decade. Scientists
going back to the beginning of the twentieth century had
been investigating ways to separate out and identify compounds that
make up various substances. And it turns out that if
(25:34):
you heat a sample of something to the point that
it vaporizes, and then pass that vapor through a column
of liquid, all the chemical components from the sample will
interact with the liquid and the sides of this column
slightly differently because of their inherent molecular properties, sort of
like like runners of different speeds. These chemicals will separate
(25:56):
themselves out from one another as they flow through this chamber,
and then you can use a chemical detector of one
kind or another to figure out what each of those
compounds is. So suddenly chemists had a relatively inexpensive way
to like automatically detect chemicals from stuff. You didn't need
like tremendous training to use this machine. You could start
(26:19):
identifying the compounds and products that may or may not
give them their flavor, may or may not, may or
may not. Doors are opening, they are. And as mass
production of food and nationalization of products took off, so
did the need to add back in flavor that was
lost in mass production and to have a product with
(26:39):
a consistent flavor a cost country and even around the world.
More and more foods were processed, and therefore more and
more foods were artificially flavored. The first flavored potato chips
from Irish company Potato came out in the nineteen fifties
with Falton vinegar and cheese and onion varieties. On US
(27:00):
grocery shelves, you'd find barbecue, are Sarah cream and onion.
This was the time that grocery stores were really taking
off and so many products were competing to end up
in the American shoppers cart. Having a memorable flavor was
a big part of that. In seven, a VP at
General Mills, Oh yeah that General Mills said that flavors
(27:21):
should serve quote as a built in trademark which will
invariably be identified with its brand name and its producer.
In the nineteen fifties, the slogan of a popular um
fragrance and flavor brand was nothing sells like flavor and
that it was the silent salesman. I know. The Food
(27:42):
Drug and Cosmetics Act got a makeover. That's when the
list of generally Recognized as Safe g r a s
was introduced in the US, and it meant that manufacturers,
if they wanted to be on that list, had to
prove they were worthy of the designation. And it made
things easier for the f d a UM and for
(28:03):
companies wanting to use the ingredients on the list, including
those in the artificial flavoring category. Wow, but artificial flavors
were not immune to the same health concerns that impacted
artificial sweeteners. In ninety three, a compound that had been
used as part of artificial sweeteners and vanilla, called kumarin
(28:24):
was taken off the market voluntarily by companies after a
study came out linking it to liver damage in rats.
Of flavoring in root beer called saffrol was removed this
way to That same year, the Food Additives Amendment passed,
but as it happened, the f D a bit off,
a bit more than it could show. There were more
(28:47):
than a thousand chemicals in these additives for them to
test a lot of them and were present in really
small amounts. So the FDA raised his hands and was like, oh,
you know, Gay, we'll just ague at your word. For
most of these, they allowed the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers
Association to decide what should be tested, and as you
(29:08):
can imagine, they were pretty laxed about the whole thing.
This is still the arrangement today and as often there
were over three thousand chemical additives on the generally recognized
a safe list, although in nineteen sixty eight and sixty
nine controversy over the safety of artificial sweeteners sacharin and
cyclomate prompted President Nixon to order an FDA review of
(29:31):
all the additives on its g R A S list.
Amidst all of this, in nineteen sixty eight, a Chinese
American doctor wrote a speculative letter for the New England
Journal of Medicine, a sort of thinking out loud piece
about effects that he had anecdotally noticed after eating at
Chinese restaurants, including stuff like heart palpitations, and the journal
(29:52):
labeled this Chinese restaurant syndrome. Although the doctor brought up
a whole list of possible culprits, from like heed to
wind duck sauce, too imported mushrooms, the press latched on
to the item on the list that was an unnatural
additive MSG. Yeah, there was no conclusive research about its effects,
(30:13):
but the press and the public rallied against it, and
some factions in Japan picked up the battle cry. One
writer who was promoting in general a return to natural
foods when as far as saying the frightening thing about
processed foods made by large corporations, in addition to the
toxicity of the large quantities of food additives used, is
(30:35):
that they caused the spiritual ruin of Japanese women. What
his His idea here was the cooking healthy meals for
your family as a form of prayer and a road
to internal peace. And yeah, apparently additives like MSG can
just ruin that. I had no idea. We talked a
little bit about MSG in our episode on Ramen, but
(30:58):
to reiterate here, research published in two thousand and six
that reviewed almost forty years worth of research studies found
no serious side effects or sensitivities in humans at large
to the amount of m SG that you could possibly
consume through food, like maybe headache or dry mouth if
you're eating on an empty stomach and you're not probably
(31:19):
properly hydrated. But the the only really bad effects that
any researcher has ever found about MSG were when they
injected it into mice. Don't don't inject yourself with MSG.
Food stuff another trace of advice from food stuff. We're
here to help, we are. We will have to do
(31:39):
a whole episode though sometimes on MSG. It's it's a
really fascinating story. It's one of those terrific corporate efforts
that that took off extremely well and had some dips,
and yeah, it's great. Yeah, I'm excited to return to that.
The diet foods that really started to take off from
the sixties and seventies necessitated all of artificial flavorings so
(32:02):
that they didn't taste so still so boring and the
words of this ad Providing taste appeal for foods lacking
either sugar or salt, and sometimes both is an extremely
difficult problem, and flavor differences in some degree are inevitable. However,
the flavor chemists can, by diligent research, provide an acceptable
flavor of such foods. Like acceptable, that's such a low bar.
(32:27):
It's kind of true, though, oh yeah, absolutely. Some things
I read suggested companies designed artificial flavors to lack an aftertaste,
which encouraged you to eat more of their product. And
I don't know how true that is. I didn't have
time to like dig into it, but I have heard
similar things recently, so I thought i'd mentioned it. Another
thing we have to come back to. This episode is
(32:47):
full of like this path, this path, this path, Oh yeah,
to choose your own adventure. In the nineteen seventies, the
chemical synthesis of Vanillen pushed ahead with new ways to
chip cheaply, not simply cheaply. Some size of vanillin from
various chemical precursors, including guaya cole, which is a byproduct
of the petroleum industry, and lingnan, which is a byproduct
(33:09):
of the wood and paper industries. These methods of production
of synthesis are cheap, but they're not always great environmentally speaking. Um,
you've got to use some hazardous solvents and other chemicals
to produce and purify your vanillen for lignant. For example,
every kilo of vanillan that you make creates a hundred
and sixty kilos of waste that you have to figure
(33:31):
out how to safely dispose of, and products that use
these synthesized vanillans have to be labeled artificial, which consumers
don't always like. Those finicky consumers. Of course, we should say.
Natural flavors can also take an environmental toll. Agriculture uses
tremendous amounts of resources and can use harmful chemicals too. Um.
(33:52):
That's why traditionally, artificial flavors have been so much cheaper
than natural flavors until in two thousand and nine, researchers
were able to make a type of yeast that makes
vanilla flavored bacteria foop after feasting on sugar it excretes vanillan.
This means they can technically label it as natural. This
(34:16):
natural vanillan went on sale in the US, but not
without controversy, especially from the anti GMO crowd. Other obligatory note,
there's no reason to distrust genetically modified foods and food
products as a whole. It's actually a super impressive feat
to get yeast in bacteria to create vanilla plants make
it as an anti microbial. Its whole job in plants
(34:39):
is to not is to kill bacteria, so it tends
to be toxic to microbes. That's pretty pretty neat. Yeah,
but yeah, there's there's a lot of bacteria and yeast
being genetically modified and and farmed to produce natural flavors
these days. Yes, and their next goal is I bet
you can guess, engineer a natural calorie free sugar. Yeah,
(35:04):
and they have a lot of funding behind them to succeed.
Um and here, Yeah, this finally brings us to the
most important question. Yes, what the heck is blue raspberry?
What is it? Why is it blue? I don't know,
actually I do. This is the thing that like I
really wanted to know in this whole episode. Okay, the
(35:29):
answer takes us back to the summers of the early
nine I remember them not at all. Oh, but I
can imagine on these hot summer days, kids were reaching
for a cool treat in the form of flavor ice
pops or otter pops. And yet those are the clear
tubes of icy sugar that have probably been in your
(35:50):
freezer since you've owned one. You don't know how they
got there there there though, Yeah, we've got some in
our freezer. I have no idea really, yeah. Um. The
problem with these ice pops is that they were limited
to four flavors at the time, cherry, strawberry, watermelon, and raspberry,
all of which are shades of red, and it made
(36:10):
it kind of hard to differentiate between flavors. Hard but doable.
And the f d A came out with research suggesting
red number two, the die responsible for the red color,
was very bad for your health. So these popsicle companies
switched it up, um, using different dyes to get the
shades of red and pink. But these new dyes were
(36:33):
either more expensive and or possibly worse for you health wise. Um,
the popsicles, I guess I should say pops ice pups
companies set their eyes on. An alternative at the time,
the blue raspberry flavored icy. You know those frozen eated
fun things, right, that's they're saying, I didn't come up
with that frozenated frozen ated fun h Okay, you get
(36:57):
him a like, yeah, movie theaters or gas stations. Yeah. Um.
They had been out on the scene since nineteen seventy.
It was basically a raspberry flavored icy, but died blue
with F D and C number one instead of red
with red number two. And actually the flavor behind blue
(37:19):
raspberry is more similar to BlackBerry, something called white bark raspberry.
Still though that berry isn't blue. Um, it's the reddish purple,
and it does take on a bluish hue when ripe,
but it's definitely not blue raspberry. Blue white bark raspberry
flavor plus F D and C blue number one equals
(37:40):
blue raspberry. The color was chosen in part because children
are drawn to bright colors um, as observed in the
case of lemonade versus pink lemonade sales. Apparently pink lemonade
way out cells lemonade UM. Once the popsicle companies started
selling pops of this flavor, it became a regular one
(38:01):
of the greatest mysteries of life. So oh and by
the way, one thirty two millions sixteen ounce blue raspberry
ices are consumed every year in the US. Oh yeah,
that's a lot. Um, We've shot her speechless. She had
to sit back in her chair to take a break
(38:22):
after that one. All right. Back in the early two thousands,
consumers kind of kind of took up this redde number
two rally again UM and started pushing back against artificial
ingredients UM based on those nineteen seventies studies and a
couple other newer ones that were linking UM artificial colors
(38:44):
and preservatives to hyperactive behavior in children. And if you'll remember,
this was when a d D and a d h
D were the huge concerns. Everyone was, you know, like,
is mine, does my child have this affliction? How will
they survive? Not that it's not a big certain it
certainly is, and it's anyway. UM. Huge corporations took notice
of this and began research to replace these artificial ingredients
(39:06):
to retain their marketability, and Nestle Company made the trend
official in when they announced that they would be removing
and replacing all artificial color flavors and preservatives in their
entire line of confections in the UK, that is Nest.
The USA would make the same announcement a couple of
years later. The movement just hooked up with the Whole
(39:28):
like organic Whole Foods health blog kind of trend and snowballed. Yeah,
and then we talked about that in our Cheddar episode
of Macaroni and Cheese getting rid of it, and so
many um companies now are trying to get rid of
and again it's not unfortunately like like more research needs
to be done to see whether or not these things
(39:50):
are actually harmful. But yeah, I guess it's driving our
important chemists industry. Yeah, those flavor is hard work out there.
You've got your work cut out for you. This episode
has so many, so many things I want to look
in two more and including this. I read a company
(40:10):
in London is trying to bring three course dinner chewing
gum from Charlie and the Chocolate factory to life, obviously
with the help of artificial flavoring future fictional foods. Oh
my god, why haven't we thought about a Willie Walk episode? Yet? Okay, yes,
I know, And and then I thought of deff beer
from The Simpsons, and I added that to the last two.
Our list is ever growing excellent. Yes, this brings us
(40:34):
to the end of um artificial flavoring, with a little
note that there's many things we must return to. Yes,
I'm particularly interested in color, the association with color and food.
That was so fascinating. Color psychology is always really great
to look into. Yes, and that brings us to the
(40:54):
end of this classic episode. We hope you enjoyed it, um,
and also if you're doing any I was just thinking
about this today because I my baking project of the
holidays is usually I was trying to think of when
I use artificial flavors. It's usually gingerbread cookies, and I'll
do a like icing and dies and candies and so
(41:18):
it's not as much artificial flavoring. So I was just
trying to think of things. But you listeners, we always
love to hear about whatever baking or cooking projects you
are embarking on. Oh oh, absolutely, and I'm sure that
y'all are getting up to some um, some really spectacular ones. Um.
We are also pulling together the the mail for the
(41:40):
last listener mail of one I know, yes, so so yeah,
so now is now is the time? If if you
have something to send to us? Yes for ninth listener
Mail episode of which I'm already work shopping the titles,
but you probably know what will be what it will be? Yes,
(42:01):
please please please send us your notes and letters. You
can email us at Hello at savor pod dot com.
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is production of
I Heart Radio four more podcasts from my Heart Radio.
You can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(42:22):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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