Artificial Flavoring of Foods

What are artificial flavors? Artificial flavoring is when chemicals are chemically extracted from food and injected into other foods to give them a certain flavor they wouldn’t have typically. This is just like the chemicals extracted from vanilla or cinnamon that’s used to add flavor to other synthetic foods. “When natural flavors are produced from these foods, the chemical compounds that give flavor (such as cinnamaldehyde and vanillin, and other contributing compounds) are extracted and concentrated from the foods. When artificial flavors are produced, the chemical compounds that give flavor are synthetically produced. The resulting flavor molecules are chemically identical, they just come from different sources.”

When creating artificial vanilla flavors, they are made in a lab. The lab takes only part of the chemicals that are actually used in vanilla. They use the ones with the strongest smell and taste properties to make it taste as much like the real vanilla as possible. “To create artificial vanilla extract, the few key flavor molecules that give the most iconic vanilla taste are created in a lab and diluted with alcohol. Since the most significant flavor compounds are molecularly identical to those found in natural vanilla, the flavor will be similar. But since artificial flavoring is missing over 100 “supporting” compounds, it will have much less complexity.” As you can imagine, these techniques and shortcuts used to make vanilla and other artificial tastes can have some negative consequences.

Thankfully finding out what has artificial flavors is simple. Just scan the ingredients list of the food. Companies are required to tell the customer there are artificial flavors by stating on the ingredients list, “artificial flavors”. They aren’t allowed to try and pass it off by naming it something else and trying to hide it. Now let’s dive into the possible negative health effects that artificial foods have on a person.

The health risks that come with eating artificial foods aren’t terrible but they still aren’t good for you. They are not full in the amount of vitamins, minerals, and fibers. They don’t contain all of the nutrients that they should contain. With over 3,000 different types of artificial flavors out there, there are many different side effects such as “nervous system depression, dizziness,chest pain, headaches, fatigue, allergies, brain damage, seizures, nausea, and much more. Some of the popular flavorings can also cause genetic defects, tumors, bladder cancer, and many other types of cancers.

In these artificial foods, there are some ingredients that are used to help mimic the flavors they are trying to create. They are not natural ingredients and they are created in a lab. One of these ingredients has been named “esters”. Esters are sweet and fruity and can help people manage how to put the fruit flavors into their foods. Next time you are eating candy or some starbursts, they will most likely contain esters.

There are many different types of esters. There are esters that have different uses. “These and other volatile esters with characteristic odours are used in synthetic flavours, perfumes, and cosmetics. Certain volatile esters are used as solvents for lacquers, paints, and varnishes; for this purpose, large quantities of ethyl acetate and butyl acetate are commercially produced.” If these things are used in paints and varnishes, do you really want to be putting them into your body. These things could be toxic and harmful to you add your health so why in the world would you put them into your bodies.

Have you ever thought about how many foods there are in the world that are made with artificial flavoring or are not made naturally? The statistics could surprise you. 96.3 percent of candies contain artificial flavoring in them. That means that nearly all of the candies out there have things in them to flavor them with fake ingredients. For the most part, if you don’t make the food yourself or know exactly where it comes from, odds are it contains artificial flavors in it.

For the most part, artificial flavors are synthesized in labs. “Both natural and artificial flavors are synthesized in laboratories, but artificial flavors come from petroleum and other inedible substances” If artificial flavors come from inedible things, then why are we supposed to eat them. What kind of things could be in them that makes them “inedible”? “Artificial flavors are often used to make processed foods enticing, even addictive.” If someone was trying to make an artificial flavor for passionfruit, they would have “the flavor team will look for cheaper sources that mimic the fruit’s molecular fingerprint. They’ll order fresh passionfruit from a supplier and taste it, then identify what they taste using a special lexicon of words (think of the wine wheel). From there, the company’s research and development laboratories identify the molecular fingerprint of the fruit and try to match those compounds to compounds available in the flavor lab.”

Artificial flavoring in foods is now very common, especially in America. America contains more foods that have artificial flavoring in them than any other country, and just behind them is England. So does this have any correlation to America having so many problems with our healths? Some of the artificial flavorings can actually help aid obesity and sometimes even cause. They are very fattening but not all types are. Check the ingredients list to see what types are in the food you eat and how fattening they can be.

All in all, artificial flavoring is in a very large percent of food that we eat on a regular basis, especially sweets. These flavorings can be harmful to our bodies and even can be fattening. They are made in labs, synthetically made — from materials found in paint — making them enedible. With all of these negative side effects that come from these artificial flavors as well, why are they still allowed? It’s all about money. Big companies just look for a paycheck and not the wellbeing of us, the customers. To say the least, I recommend trying to stay away from these foods as best you can.

-Blake Peterson

Byers, Allie. “Artificial Flavors.” 3 April. 2019.

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Akkora. “Artificial Flavors in Food: What Are They and Should You Avoid Them?” 80 Twenty Nutrition, 6 Dec. 2017, 80twentynutrition.com/blog/artificial-flavors-food-avoid/.

Dwyer, Kate. “The Truth About Natural and Artificial Flavors.” Bon Appétit, Bon Appétit, 30 May 2017, www.bonappetit.com/story/truth-about-natural-artificial-flavors.