🚀 go-pugleaf

Tim Campbell wrote:
> from Eric Schlossers Fast Food Nation
> 
>  A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a
> Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following
> ingredients:    ...

   (list of 4 dozen chemicals omitted)

  How would a genuine strawberry, broken down to that level of
analysis, compare?  I'm honored to think that they go to all that
effort just so my food will taste good.

-- 
   - David Chesler <chesler@post.harvard.edu>
     Iacta alea est

>   (list of 4 dozen chemicals omitted)
>
>  How would a genuine strawberry, broken down to that level of
>analysis, compare?  I'm honored to think that they go to all that
>effort just so my food will taste good.

Pretty similar.  Like the sentence at the end of the quote suggests,
the practical difference between "natural" and "artificial" flavor is
quite arbitrary, mostly depending on the ingredients that go into an
involved chemical engineering process.  There are cases where
"artificial" flavor is chemically closer to what it's pretending to be
than a processed "natural" flavor.

Great book, well worth reading, can't wait for the movie.

R's,
John

David Chesler wrote:
> Tim Campbell wrote:
> > from Eric Schlossers Fast Food Nation
> >
> >  A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a
> > Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following
> > ingredients:    ...
>
>    (list of 4 dozen chemicals omitted)
>
>   How would a genuine strawberry, broken down to that level of
> analysis, compare?  I'm honored to think that they go to all that
> effort just so my food will taste good.
>

Minus the preservatives.

> --
>    - David Chesler <chesler@post.harvard.edu>
>      Iacta alea est

"David Chesler" in news:N6SdnVh_E6Nm4x7eRVn-jQ@comcast.com:
> Tim Campbell wrote:
>   (list of 4 dozen chemicals omitted)
>
>  How would a genuine strawberry, broken down to that level of analysis, 
> compare?

Exactly.  Tim even understates the situation.  Lists of chemicals like that 
evoke more about people's awareness of nature than about the foods 
described.  They're a device for emotional manipulation.  (One newspaper 
article, almost thirty years ago, looked at this gambit, pointing out the 
scientific names of the chemicals in common and ancient natural foods. 
"Potatoes contain over 150, one of which, solanine, is an outright 
poison." --  Quot'n from slightly dated memory.)

This gambit probably is exploited in journalism more often than it's probed. 
(Apropos, we are _still_ not over the "anti-freeze" misconception that 
developed out of the 1985 Austrian wine scandal, as evident in one 2005 
article, and a thread on alt.food.wine)

-- Max 

David Chesler wrote:
> 
> 
>   How would a genuine strawberry, broken down to that level of
> analysis, compare?  I'm honored to think that they go to all that
> effort just so my food will taste good.
>

The big fake out is that the artificial is as healthy as the natural and
sometimes better. This is not true as the chemicals are bound with
enzymes in the natural product and we are somewhat adapted to eating
them without harm. The purity of the volatiles in the artificial
flavorings tends to produce different levels of cell permeability that
may introduce a higher percentage of free radicals than even left handed
enzymes (enzymes with no food value)

JJ

Max Hauser wrote:
>  Lists of chemicals like that 
> evoke more about people's awareness of nature than about the foods 
> described.

  My favorite lists are from the anti-smokers.  Cigarette smoke
includes chemical ABC, which was also present in the cream in
Adolph Hitler's coffee...

-- 
   - David Chesler <chesler@post.harvard.edu>
     Iacta alea est

Tim Campbell wrote:
> from Eric Schlossers Fast Food Nation
> 
>  A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a
> Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following
> ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol,
> anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid,
> cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil,
> diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl
> butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl
> lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl
> propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone (10
> percent solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate,
> isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone,
> methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl
> heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint
> essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate,
> orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone,
> vanillin, and solvent.
> 
> Although flavors usually arise from a mixture of many different
> volatile chemicals, often a single compound supplies the dominant
> aroma. Smelled alone, that chemical provides an unmistakable sense of
> the food. Ethyl-2-methyl butyrate, for example, smells just like an
> apple. Many of today's highly processed foods offer a blank palette:
> whatever chemicals are added to them will give them specific tastes.
> Adding methyl-2-pyridyl ketone makes something taste like popcorn.
> Adding ethyl-3-hydroxy butanoate makes it taste like marshmallow. The
> possibilities are now almost limitless. Without affecting appearance
> or nutritional value, processed foods could be made with aroma
> chemicals such as hexanal (the smell of freshly cut grass) or 3-
> methyl butanoic acid (the smell of body odor).
> 
> The 1960s were the heyday of artificial flavors in the United States.
> The synthetic versions of flavor compounds were not subtle, but they
> did not have to be, given the nature of most processed food. For the
> past twenty years food processors have tried hard to use
> only "natural flavors" in their products. According to the FDA, these
> must be derived entirely from natural sources -- from herbs, spices,
> fruits, vegetables, beef, chicken, yeast, bark, roots, and so forth.
> Consumers prefer to see natural flavors on a label, out of a belief
> that they are more healthful. Distinctions between artificial and
> natural flavors can be arbitrary and somewhat absurd, based more on
> how the flavor has been made than on what it actually contains.
> 
> WHY DO THE FRIES TASTE SO GOOD? FIND OUT WHY HERE
> 
> http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm
> 

Fascinating reading!

>    (list of 4 dozen chemicals omitted)
>
>   How would a genuine strawberry, broken down to that level of
> analysis, compare?  I'm honored to think that they go to all that
> effort just so my food will taste good.


Yes, but, but, but - what about the DIHYDROGEN OXIDE?!?!!?!?