The Flavor Spectrum: Exploring the Nuances of Natural and Artificial Flavors

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Cooking food for a large family can be very tricky especially during this festive period. This is because you are going to be cooking for a lot of people where some are going to be allergic to certain things, some vegetarians which means that they cannot eat that chicken you intend to put on he table, so what do you do? For people who have allergies, getting the an alternative would be good but for vegetarians, getting artificial/plant based meat will do the trick. Leaving that, what do you think about natural and artificial flavoring?

Have you see two types of flavor in the store before with one being natural flavor and the other being artificial flavor. My answer is yes! I would also guess that you would prefer the natural flavor over the artificial? Well, let me tell you that these two do not really have much difference and they could be chemically identical.

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Rules to what is labeled natural or artificial flavor is determined by the food regulation agency of the country. It is important to know that the word flavor is associated with ingredients that affects the taste, and not anything nutritional. A natural flavor is any ingredient that is added from a plant or animal and artificial if it is not made from animals or plants. So when we are talking about natural and artificial, we are talking about the sources. A natural flavor that you might know is Vanilla has the characteristic taste of the chemical Vanillin which is gotten from the Vanilla beans by soaking in water and alcohol.

Vanilla beans are the fruits of Finicky tropical orchids and it can be difficult to grow and harvest which is why there we have decided to opt for artificial ones which is gotten from paper pulp or petroleum derivative. This process is cheaper and more vanillin will be produced, and while the process of getting the artificial one might not sound appealing to your ears, we still end up with the same chemical either naturally or artificially.

There are a lot of factors to be considered when looking at artificial and natural flavors. With certain natural flavor can come the destruction of the plant or killing of the animals that they are gotten from. For instance, Massoia Lactone which is a chemical that tastes like coconut, can be gotten from the back of some trees in Asia, but when the back of the tree is stripped off to get the chemical, the tree dies making the natural method not sustainable for the Pina Colada flavor, but on the bright side, it can be made in the lab without destroying any trees or causing much havoc.

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When I mention havoc, I am talking about the fact that lab made flavoring are usually made from oil and other materials that are not environmentally friendly and could produce lots of waste waters, but then we need to weigh their pros and cons. The chemical composition might be the same, but then the taste might differ as chemicals cannot just cover for tastes.

Also there are so many flavor that looks natural but aren't safe or healthy to use. For instance, consuming Fly amanita can be toxic when consumed, this is why food are meant to be generally recognized as safe and with this, flavors also need to be tested to be sure they are safe to consume. Since flavors have been tested, Calamus (a natural flavor), and Cinnamyl Anthranilate (artificial flavor) have been banned. Other flavor such as Diacetyl which is an artificial buttery flavoring in microwave popcorn have also drawn concern as it can lead to a disease known as Popcorn Lung if inhaled in large amount. This only occurs when it is inhaled in large amount for instance those in factories that produce popcorn.

After discussing this, it is important to know that natural flavors and artificial flavors are good and because one is artificial and the other natural doesn't mean it is better than the other.

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