# Man Made Flavors? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 4, 2002, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417 "2002-12-04T12:54:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mhing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mhing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhing)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/1 "2002-12-04T12:54:38Z")
A few of us have been trying to come up with a “flavor” that is not derived from a natural source or a combination of natural sources. The closest we could come up with is caramel, but caramel is basically burnt sugar … I think. Are there any flavors (that are commonly used) that are chemically produced and palatable? One person suggested plastic, but until we see plastic flavored candy we are not counting his answer. Can anyone help us? This conversation has been going on long enough in our staff room, we NEED someone to help answer this for us! Thanking you in advance M. Hingley ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/2 "2002-12-04T13:02:25Z")
bubblegum. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/3 "2002-12-04T13:16:22Z")
I’m sure there are plenty of them. How about vanillin, the artificial flavor that tastes like vanilla? Or “banana oil”, which is an ester that smells like bananas, but has nothing to do with bananas. Or whatever the hell they flavor “artificial grape \_\_\_\_\_” with, which tastes nothing like grape. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/4 "2002-12-04T13:20:52Z")
What CalMeacham said. Just take a trip down to the local grocery store’s junkfood section. Very few of the chip flavors have much to do with natural flavors. Just off the top of my head, I can think of two or three flavors of Doritos that taste like nothing nature intended to produce. But one can dream of what glory a NachoFruit tree would be… ---
**Author:** ![mhing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mhing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhing)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/5 "2002-12-04T13:31:09Z")
Bubblegum, was the first one we thought of, we thought back to the days of hockey / baseball card gum … but … where does the flavor of bubblegum come from? Natural sources! The replies are exactly our conversations we have had on this topic. Our point is there are lots of “flavor names” that have nothing to do with natural products and we understand that most products have artificial flavor or simulated flavor but - They are still based on natural products and flavors! We want a flavor that is totaly man made - no connections to fruit, spices or other natural “flavors”. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/6 "2002-12-04T13:38:41Z")
I recall synthesising essence of pear drops in my high school laboratory. I can’t remember what I synthesised it from, unfortunately, but there were no pears involved. ---
**Author:** ![Ultimate\_Pung\_Chow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Ultimate\_Pung\_Chow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ultimate_Pung_Chow)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/7 "2002-12-04T13:40:16Z")
you fucking moron. he wants COMPLETELY ARTIFICIAL FLAVOURS! SOMETHING NOT DERIVED FROM NATURE! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/8 "2002-12-04T13:53:50Z")
I don’t suppose there are many such flavours around; most of the effort in synthetic flavour research seems to be directed at duplicating natural flavours, understandably so. AFAIK the flavouring in Juicy fruit gum is a synthetic blend that is supposed to approximate some sort of vague fruit salad idea; that may be the closest you’re going to get. Perhaps you have the basis of a marketable idea there; develop a blend of synthetic aromas that is pleasant, but not inspired by or in imitation of anything natural and market it as ‘the gum that tastes like nothing on Earth’ ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/9 "2002-12-04T13:57:57Z")
**UDS** - I remember that too. It was an ester or something wasn’t it? And it smells nothing like actual pears. So that might qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/10 "2002-12-04T14:02:11Z")
The problem being that our senses of taste and smell are pretty much attuned to detecting aroma chemicals that occur in nature and nature has been pretty creative with the blending. It’s like trying to reinvent the wheel, but not allowing it to be round. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/11 "2002-12-04T14:03:31Z")
Language, \*\*Ultimate Pung Chow{/b], language! What he actually says is “Are there any flavors (that are commonly used) that are chemically produced and palatable?” and subsequently "We want a flavor that is totaly man made - no connections to fruit, spices or other natural “flavors”. Well, essence of pear drops is chemically produced and (supposedly) palatable, and it is totally man made. It is not, in your own phrase, derived from nature (except in so far as the base ingredients must ultimately have been extracted or compounded from something found in nature). Do you think he is looking for a synthetic flavour which is not intended to resemble a natural flavour? If so, I think he should say so. I also think its a meaningless question. Raw cake mix is synthesised by man and doesn’t taste anything like flour, water, eggs or sugar. But we choose to eat it because we like the taste. And there are cookie-dough flavoured products, aren’t there? This would qualify, except that we don’t think of raw cake mix as a chemical. For that matter, cooked cake mix (i.e. cake) would also qualify. The bottom line is that anything we add to food because we like the taste of it is a flavour. Anything that we synthesise (as opposed to picking off a plant, for example) is a synthetic flavour. There is no meaningful further distinction between “natural” and “chemical” flavours, or natural and chemical sources, and there are many, many flavours that we synthesise that do not resemble anything that can be picked off a tree. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/12 "2002-12-04T14:08:02Z")
**UDS** , we’re ignoring him. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/13 "2002-12-04T14:08:45Z")
Actually, as I note, “banana oil” has nothing to do with bananas – it just happens to smell like them (unlike, say, methyl salicylate, which is “oil of wintergreen” that smells like wintergreen. It can be completely artificially produced – heck, you can do it at home – but this one _is_ the same thing that gives wintergreen its flavor. According to William Poundstone (in the first **Big Secrets** book), ther _do_ exist flavors not found in nature that way. They’re called “fantasia” blends. A lot of them use natural flavors (like the flavoring for Coca Cola, his example), burt I’m sure there are others that don’t – you just aren’t familiar with them because most flavors are at least given a “hook” or label that ties them to something familiar – like that damned “grape” I mentioned in my post. For my money, “grape” flavor has nothing to do with real grape, and meets your criteria. “Bubblegum”, already cited, probably does too. But you’re artificially excluding lots of other examples (like “banana oil”) by insisting on them not even being _named_ after similar real flavors and smells. ---
**Author:** ![Amfet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Amfet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amfet)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/14 "2002-12-04T14:09:47Z")
I cannot think of any that is 100% made up. Even bubblegum flavor typically contians citrus oils (or constituents) and spice or mint oil, (or constituents). I would be surprized to see a flavor that doesn’t contain _any_ compound that can be found natrually. I suppose you could make a simple vanilla flavor as a solution of ethyl vanillin (3-ethoxy-4hydroxy-benzaldehyde). The flavor would be reminiscent of vanillia and since ethyl vanillin is 100% artificial, does not exist in nature, it would be completely man made. But then really all you’re doing is making a (bad) artificial vanilla flavor. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/15 "2002-12-04T14:15:13Z")
There’s a problem in the definition of “natural source”. Lots of chemicals affect our sense of “taste”, but in what sense can the chemicals be defined as natural or not? ---
**Author:** ![Amfet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Amfet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amfet)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/16 "2002-12-04T14:46:05Z")
[Labeling](http://courses.che.umn.edu/02fscn4345-1f/labeling.htm) from this site, which is taken from the Code of Federal Regulations. > [@](#): > > Natural Flavoring > > 101.22(a)(3) The term “natural flavor” or “natural flavoring” means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. Natural flavors include the natural essence or extractives obtained from plants listed in 182.10, 182.20, 182.30, 182.40, and 182.50 and Part 184 of this chapter, and the substances listed in 172.510 of this chapter. > > (controversy about those that bind water or add protein to foods) > > Artificial Flavoring > > (a)(1) The term “artificial flavor” or “artificial flavoring” means any substance, the function of which is to impact flavor, which is not derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof. Artificial flavor includes the substances listed in 172~5l5(b) and 182.60 of this chapter except where these are derived from natural sources. The confusion may be coming from the definition of artificial. If any of the materials used were not _obtained_ from a natrual source then the flavor is considered (at least in part) artificial. _Even_ if that same compound is found in nature (European regulations are different, I’m following US regs). But I think the OP is asking for examples of flavors made entirely from compounds that have no natrual source. ---
**Author:** ![lindsay.reid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@lindsay.reid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsay.reid)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/17 "2002-12-05T16:23:04Z")
cotton candy flavour They make bubble gum and ice cream in “cotton candy” flavour, and I can’t think of anything natural about that 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/18 "2002-12-05T19:06:24Z")
Cecil briefly discussed the flavor of bubble gum in the column [What’s the term for people who can’t smell or taste? Flavor of bubble gum; No-flight zones (cont’d)](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/980327.html) ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/19 "2002-12-05T19:25:21Z")
I think the OP needs to be more specific about what he’s asking. Are you referring to : 1. Flavors that don’t mimic a naturally existing flavor, i.e. bubblegum and juicyfruit? or 1. Flavors that aren’t made with extracts, esters, or any other close derivatives of naturally occurring substances? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417/20 "2002-12-05T19:29:05Z")
OK, a little organic chemistry. Many of the molecules that give fruits their smell and taste are esters of some kind. R-C=O | O-R’ The R group and the R’ group can be all sorts of different things. And each one has a characteristic aroma. You can synthesize these esters by the bucketful in the lab by reacting the relevant carboxylic acid with an alcohol. Now, many of these esters are found in nature. So if you want to produce the main ester found in a vanilla bean, you pick the correct carboxylic acid, the correct alcohol, and you’ve made vanillin. Dissolve it in ethanol, put in some brown color and you can put it on the grocery shelves as artificial vanilla flavoring. It never came from a vanilla bean, it is only one of the many flavor compounds in a vanilla bean, but it does have a flavor reminiscent of a vanilla bean. You can do the same thing with many of the other esters found in fruits…“apple”, “grape”, “banana”, etc. But, you can also create esters that aren’t found in any known plant. And these esters will often taste vaguely fruity. The prime example is juicyfruit gum flavor. No known fruit produces the ester that flavors juicyfruit gum. You could come up with millions of these things if you wanted to, each with a unique flavor, each having no connection to nature. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-made-flavors/140417.md?page=2)