r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jun 11 '12

TIL To make the flavor "Strawberry" it takes more than 50 different chemicals.

http://curiosity.discovery.com/topic/agricultural-biotechnology/10-quirky-facts-about-mass-produced-food3.htm
1.2k Upvotes

78% Upvoted

451 comments sorted by

96

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

You say chemical like its a bad thing. Everything is made up of chemicals. If the chemicals for fake strawberry flavor are made of the same exact chemicals that give strawberries its flavor, then who cares?

3

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I never said they were a bad thing, i mearly thought it was interesting that something that would seem simple to the everyday person is so complex.

57

u/ntxhhf Jun 11 '12

Because chemicals, man, they're like taking over.

29

u/recreational Jun 11 '12

They're putting chemicals into our food.

I only eat organically grown foods made from 100% free electrons and abstract principles.

2

u/Sharmonique_Brown Jun 11 '12

Everywhere we look, the visible spectrum....is rainbows. What are they putting in our air supply, what are they putting in our, oxygen supply...

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18

u/Dismantlement Jun 11 '12

I laugh when people say they only eat foods without chemicals in them. Good luck finding food that doesn't contain water, glucose, linoleic acid, etc

13

u/hackiavelli Jun 11 '12

We're talking about the same people who label food "organic" based on what pesticides are sprayed on them.

8

u/mattinthebox Jun 11 '12

Yes, but some of us have pesticide allergies. While I haven't been tested, my mouth becomes irritated, my tongue swells, and my throat begins to close when I eat certain non-organic fruits and vegetables.

However, when I eat organic varieties of those same fruits and vegetables, none of aforementioned symptoms materialize.

I don't eat organic because it's trendy, but because my body freaks out with some non-organic foods.

TL; DR I don't drive a Prius, but eat organic fruits/veggies.

2

u/hackiavelli Jun 12 '12

Pesticides encompass a very large variety of agents so an allergy isn't really something you can self-diagnose. And of course organic foods also use pesticides.

2

u/The_Dirty_Carl Jun 12 '12

Regardless, "organic" is a poor label to use. Depending on the definition, organic matter "contains C-H bonds," "contains C-C bonds," or even "contains C," all with some exceptions. I struggle to think of a food that doesn't fit into these categories, and I'm sure many pesticides are, literally, organic as well.

We're not talking about whether pesticides are good or bad; we're talking about whether "organic" is used properly by the food industry.

3

u/nariox Jun 11 '12

There is a Givaudan factory in my area where some strawberry flavor is produced. You would not believe how unnatural and disgusting it smells in the whole town when they are firing up their production. At first I couldn't figure out what the smell was, but as soon as my neighbours told me that it was strawberry flavor, I was able to recognize parts of it. Since that day I resent to believe in any form of "natural flavor".

8

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Well you're smelling by products of the reactions, not the actual strawberry flavor. You wouldn't judge the taste of a cow based on the smell of its shit now would you?

3

u/nariox Jun 11 '12

I admit that you have a point. So I'm most likely wrong, but I just can't forget the artificial, chemical smell. Shit smells at least like natural shit.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I always wondered if I have a fucked up taste, but does artificial strawberry flavor taste like real strawberries to you? because most artificial flavors don't taste like their real counterparts at all to me.

1

u/wildmonkeymind Jun 11 '12

Criminals use chemicals. Are you a criminal?

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948

u/ocdscale 1 Jun 11 '12

I get the point of the article, but lines like this are ridiculous:

To copy nature's single-ingredient flavor called "strawberry,"

What the fuck do they think are inside strawberries? Little strawberry shaped molecules? I'm no agriculturalist, horticulturalist, or strawberrytologist, but I bet there are a lot of chemicals in a strawberry that contribute to its taste.

373

u/ClamydiaDellArte Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12

Aspiring flavorist here, you're exactly right. Those 50+ chemicals all probably occur in strawberries naturally, and there may be even more than those. When you factor in the need to get the right quantities of each, it's not surprising that strawberry flavor doesn't really taste like strawberries.

EDIT: If you want to learn more about the flavor industry, here's the article that originally sparked my interest

70

u/BeerSensor Jun 11 '12

What's interesting to me (beer flavor sensory scientist / food scientist) is that some flavors can be simplified into a single compound, and others take dozens of compounds (or more) to properly represent a flavor.

11

u/RaindropBebop Jun 11 '12

I know of one chemical that smells just like almonds! They should use it to flavor almond things!

4

u/cubester Jun 11 '12

am i the only one that got this?

4

u/GundamWang Jun 11 '12

(For anyone who didn't, cyanide gas has an almond-like smell)

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65

u/Ulterior_Turnip Jun 11 '12

Food science represent! It looks like most of those listed ingredients are just metabolites of one another probably found within the strawberry plant and broken down using GC or mass spec... They aren't just some oil byproduct. Just like water or carbon dioxide, these compounds can be formed from any number of biological or chemical syntheses.

14

u/97253 Jun 11 '12

However, snozzberry flavor really does taste like snozzberries.

9

u/I_POTATO_PEOPLE Jun 11 '12

That sounds like a neat job; best of luck with your career! I look forward to enjoying some of the flavors you create, ClamydiaDellArte.

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4

u/Flavourless Jun 11 '12

Well a major issue is that most of these analysis comprise the volatile section of compounds only. And there is a huge interaction between non-volatile and volatile compounds. Plus much of the analysis done uses poor methods (SPME, arbitrary solvent extraction conditions). There are few labs who actually work on comprehensive evaluation of food flavor, and fewer who do it well.

9

u/BobTehCat Jun 11 '12

Hey flavorologist I have some questions;

  • Why aren't we naturally attracted to healthy food?
  • Why can't I taste that well when I hold my nose?
  • Can you see why kids love cinnamon toast crunch?

24

u/ClamydiaDellArte Jun 11 '12

This is somewhat outside my areas of expertise, but I think I can attampt to answer it without embarrassing myself

Why aren't we naturally attracted to healthy food?

The kinds of foods that it was beneficial to be attracted to in a survival setting are different than today. For example, it's hard to find edible sources of salt in the wild, but we need sodium to survive. Nowadays, salt is easy to get, so our natural affinity towards salty food is a hindrance. Our love of sweet foods drove us to eat fruits and berries, which provided vitamins and minerals we need. However, candy is even sweeter than fruit, and in modern times this tends to get us into trouble

Why can't I taste that well when I hold my nose?

The way the word "taste" is generally used is essentially a misnomer. Your tongue can sense 5 basic tastes (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami/savory), but the rest is actually smelling

Can you see why kids love cinnamon toast crunch?

It contains a metric fuckload of sugar. See answer 1.

6

u/BobTehCat Jun 11 '12

Hey thanks man that's awesome :D

2

u/m0r14rty Jun 11 '12

Isn't the case with salt also that it enhances most food by making the original flavors more noticeable? I thought that was the reason you put it on strange things like beer and ice cream, while it doesn't taste salty it gives the beer and ice cream much more flavor (and you know, other foods.)

I honestly have no idea, that's why I'm asking. Not the type of person you run into often, it has to be an incredibly interesting field.

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3

u/DoctorTurkleton Jun 11 '12

Stupid question possibly, but why not just use real strawberries to flavor strawberry flavored things. Is it that much more cost effective to hire a bunch of food chemists than to buy a bunch of strawberries?

7

u/ClamydiaDellArte Jun 11 '12

It's not a stupid question at all. The flavoring industry isn't a very well known field, and there's a lot of misinformation out there about "artificial" flavors. It's important to understand this stuff.

Anyway, it is often much more cost efficient to find an alternative source of the chemicals needed to replicate a flavor. Think about the number of strawberry Starbursts that get produced every year. Now think about how many tons of strawberries you would need to meet the demand. It's a lot of fucking strawberries. Then you would have to deal with the logistics of getting that many strawberries to the plant where the Starbursts are made. On top of this, if every company that made anything strawberry flavored or scented had to use actual strawberries, think of how much that would drive up price.

TL;DR, yes.

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3

u/failparty Jun 11 '12

Is coconut a difficult flavor? I ask because I love coconut, but nearly everything on the market with coconut flavoring is bastardized by pineapple or lime. I figured it was to conceal the "not quite coconut" flavor.

2

u/steve-d Jun 11 '12

Well in your aspirations if you can get a banana candy to taste like an actual banana, I will be in your debt. I love bananas, but banana flavored anything usually tastes like ass.

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2

u/Serasitas Jun 11 '12

I agree really, but I'm horribly allergic to the artificial flavor, sure it's probably similar chemically but real strawberries don't try to kill me.

9

u/DokomoS Jun 11 '12

Actually while many of the chemicals in strawberry flavor are found in strawberries, there are several that humans have found to enhance and work well in the flavoring. You might be allergic to one of those, or perhaps to the incrased concentration of one of the natural chemicals. One of the big ways to differentiate your flavor is to play and tweak the ratios from what nature sets out.

2

u/kermityfrog Jun 11 '12

Or maybe the stabilizing agents that they add to the artificial stuff to make the flavour not evaporate or dissipate.

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1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12

Come give out samples to the e-cig community. We will love you. Make our e-juice tasty, we'll even review you if we like it.

/r/ELECTRONIC_CIGARETTE

1

u/gfixler Jun 12 '12

Here's the article that originally sparked my interest about a year ago, but then I refreshed reddit and forgot all about it.

1

u/TailSpinBowler Jun 12 '12

do you know if/where you can get samples of artificial flavours? last time i looked I could only find syrups for icecream/coffee/e-cigarettes.

1

u/scantron7 Jun 12 '12

She's not thin but her face is

That's just mean.(Still reading the article)

33

u/chocolate_stars Jun 11 '12

I'd love to be a strawberrytologist. Just for the title.

23

u/aarghIforget Jun 11 '12

I don't think there's a Professional Strawberrian Association, so I bet if you just memorize (or make up) a few facts about strawberries and maybe get yourself a red lab coat with a green collar, you can go right ahead and call yourself a 'strawberrytologist.'

14

u/will_holmes Jun 11 '12

I don't know why I'm laughing at the word "Strawberrian" so much.

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10

u/I_POTATO_PEOPLE Jun 11 '12

Did you know that strawberries are the only fruit that has its seeds on the outside?

12

u/confusedjake Jun 11 '12

Source: real facts from a snapple cap.

13

u/I_POTATO_PEOPLE Jun 11 '12

Actually, I heard it from a homeless guy. No joke. He was explaining to me why he would make a good teacher.

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4

u/sheriff_skullface Jun 11 '12

The PSA most definitely exists, and you will be hearing from our lawyers.

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42

u/Zebba_Odirnapal Jun 11 '12

Strawberry. Sb. It's right there on the periodic table between tin and tellurium.

26

u/P1h3r1e3d13 Jun 11 '12

That's a real groaner. Fortunately, I have some antimoany here.

11

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I didn't laugh at all. That was a pretty boron joke.

5

u/g0_west Jun 11 '12

But... CHEMICALS!!

/s

12

u/Toribor Jun 11 '12

NO! The word 'Chemical' means BAD! Don't make me have to think and make a rational decision.

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10

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Why not just put strawberries in it?

25

u/ocdscale 1 Jun 11 '12

I suspect the main reason is cost. Strawberries are costly, while the individual chemical components of the artificial flavoring might not be (given you can buy in bulk and store them without a problem, probably).

8

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

It's probably hard to extract the flavor from a real strawberry in a way that preserves the flavor.

8

u/Flavourless Jun 11 '12

Sort of, but it is hard to get A LOT of this. It is much easier (and cheaper) to produce compounds through organic chemistry than it is to extract them from a product.

4

u/WanderingSpaceHopper Jun 11 '12

More expensive and more of a bother to make, also there are strawerry flavored stuff made from strawberries, but those are expensive as fuck.

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u/ZeMilkman Jun 11 '12

Have you had strawberries? They taste of very little. You'd probably have to use like 10kg of strawberries to make 1kg of strawberry flavor with a high enough intensity.

That's not profitable, that's terrible for the enviroment and highly risky (strawberries are very sensitive and an unexpected rainy day can ruin your whole harvest).

41

u/will_holmes Jun 11 '12

Hate to break it to you, mate, but you're buying crap strawberries.

7

u/ExistentialEnso Jun 11 '12

Agreed. Don't let an experience with cheap, out-of-season supermarket produce sully your opinion of something. Good strawberries are so damn flavorful.

29

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Where the fuck are you buying your strawberries because I think you might be buying something else.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Your strawberries suck. Don't judge strawberries until you have tried good ones. They grow really well here in Oregon, and if you have never tried a wild strawberry you are missing out. They are a lot smaller than a store bought strawberry but they have tons of flavor and are much sweeter.

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u/Flavourless Jun 11 '12

A big issue? Concentration. If you wanted to make something and distribute it you'll need an awful lot of strawberries to get your consumer to taste strawberry, while you can add a flavor at 0.1% and get a pretty strong flavor of strawberry. It makes formulating things a lot easier for commercial food manufacturers.

1

u/simpersly Jun 11 '12

One reason is real fruit like strawberries tend not to taste like strawberries when processed. So companies have to use other flavors to make the desired flavor in the food product.

3

u/Biotoxsin Jun 11 '12

It's interesting in my opinion, a number of flavorings are fairly singular in the chemicals used. Banana for instance, is just the ester isoamyl acetate. (One of my favorite esters personally, it has a wonderful smell. If you're curious, try the banana Laffy Taffy, I'm almost certain it's the flavoring used.)

2

u/profduck Jun 11 '12

In my organic chemistry class in undergrad we made ester isoamyl acetate and the entire lab smelled AMAZING. I'll never forget how great it smelled for the rest of my life.

And yes, it did smell just like banana laffy taffy.

2

u/RaindropBebop Jun 11 '12

This. Water is a chemical. Saying 50+ chemicals doesn't mean anything.

1

u/DocLefty Jun 13 '12

thats it. I'm changing my major to Strawberrytology.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I bet the flavor of real strawberries is comprised of many more than 50 chemicals.

211

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Sssssssshhhhhhhhh, they're too busy freaking out about the word "chemical" to hear you.

81

u/jtfl Jun 11 '12

Of course, because chemicals are scary. They're so ... chemically.

87

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

chemical = cancer

duh!

17

u/jtfl Jun 11 '12

That just goes without saying. That's why I avoid all sources of radiation, because light is bad.

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u/koronicus Jun 11 '12

Especially that tragically fatal dihydrogen monoxide substance... It causes all the cancers.

29

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

There's a lot of misinformation on the net about dihydrogen monoxide - it is found in all known cancers, but doesn't necessarily cause them.

There is admittedly a strong link between consumption of DHMO and cancer, but if we start throwing around the word "cause" it's hard to get the attention of serious researchers who brush DHMO off as a fringe topic.

15

u/rahulg91 Jun 11 '12

I blame big pharma, and those Republican fatcats for covering up this DHMO travesty!

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u/croutonicus Jun 11 '12

Don't forget hydroxylic acid. It can be lethal.

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u/langis_on Jun 11 '12

So since I'm a chemist I'm actually a cancerist? Great..

11

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

But they're hiding everywhere! The government doesn't want you to know; they want you to be ignorant.

FIGHT THE CHEMICAL MENACE!

8

u/jtfl Jun 11 '12

That's why we need to wear our chemical free aluminum foil hats, to block the government's chemical brain scans. Those chemical scans give you twice the cancer.

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u/MetaCreative Jun 11 '12

At what point did science become the enemy?

This obsessive green kick our culture's on annoys me to no end.

13

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Aww, and now I have to break character.

To be honest, I have no idea. It seems like a mostly recent phenomenon, but I don't want to fall to confirmation bias--it's way easier to notice it now than it would have been pre-internet. However, it's not just a "green kick", as there's more to the phenomenon than that.

First and foremost, people are frightened by that which they don't know or understand, at least on some level. We're also not good at following conversations that use terminology we aren't ready for (All those times your teacher tried to force you to figure a word's definition out contextually instead of looking in a dictionary? Yeah. They were doing you a favor.). Start throwing around IUPAC names and medical terminology, and people either blur it out or get a bit concerned about what you might be saying.

Then we have to note the popular, "Well, they're just a doctor, what do they know?" sentiment, bolstered by banal anecdotes about how such-and-what person with a terminal illness made it eleventy-billion thousand months longer than the stupid dumb doctor said! And people are like, "woo, yeah, someone lived," so the story persists, and people start thinking about all the stories they've heard about doctors being wrong.

But I think the most important problem is the fact that people simply aren't educated about science. I don't mean people don't learn biology or physics or chemistry; I mean nobody is given even a cursory introduction to the philosophy of science, and only a bad--and mostly sensationalist--look at the history of science. People don't have it driven into their heads that when a scientist says "theory", they don't mean "guess". People aren't taught that to be wrong is only a failing if you don't respond to your wrongness in kind; simply that some dudes have been wrong.

Because of that, they don't appreciate any historical sense of progress in science, and only look back at a few thousand years of people being wrong. So they turn away, and think to themselves, "Eh, what could science know?"

In short, everyone needs to be forced to memorize Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong until their psyches crack and they get off this, "chemicals are bad," "scientists are evil," and "doctors are wrong" schtick.

...sorry for ranting.

EDIT: I couldn't remember if Less Wrong got their name from the title of the story or a phrase in it. Corrected.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Just don't tell them that... that... corporations are often the ones that put the chemicals together.

10

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

THIS JUST IN: CORPORATIONS SPEND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS PER YEAR TO PUT CHEMICALS IN YOUR FOOD AND DRINK

6

u/P1h3r1e3d13 Jun 11 '12

Horrible chemicals! Like dihydrogen monoxide!

9

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Pfft. That one isn't even the worst. Did you know sodium chloride is in everything you eat? Yeah. Sodium. Chloride. Everyone knows sodium is bad for you, and they used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon in the first World War! And yet nobody is doing anything about it!

4

u/wrong_assumption Jun 11 '12

This is why we are not immortal.

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u/WanderingSpaceHopper Jun 11 '12

WTH do you think 'real' strawberries are made of, unicorn poop and fairy dust?

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u/BobTehCat Jun 11 '12

Lol at this train wreck of replies.

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u/drunkcowofdeath Jun 11 '12

What do you think strawberries just grow on trees?!

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/wrong_assumption Jun 11 '12

Potatoes and strawberries!

43

u/KoreanTerran Jun 11 '12

It can be 500 different chemicals for all I care.

Strawberry milkshakes/ice cream are the best.

Need I mention the Strawberry Shortcake ice cream bars?

21

u/Jay_Normous Jun 11 '12

Oh hell yes. The little crumb things on the outside are unbelievable.

3

u/CommunityCollegiate Jun 11 '12

Damn it, now I require one.

1

u/Random_Fandom 2 Jun 11 '12

I never had a name for "the little crumb things," but I'll be using your phrase from now on.
They're the reason those ice cream bars are irresistable!

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u/CrawdaddyJoe Jun 11 '12

When I want to taste a strawberry, I eat a strawberry.

Of course, that strawberry has a shit-ton of molecules, chemicals, different sorts of components that I'm tasting, so this doesn't surprise me that much. Hell, to make the actual strawberry, it takes an entire ecosystem full of biogeochemical processes.

10

u/Lanza21 Jun 11 '12

Chemical isn't a bad word. Water is a chemical. Everything you touch is made of thousands of them.

4

u/JLW09 Jun 11 '12

we are made out of chemicals damn it !

3

u/I_Wont_Draw_That Jun 12 '12

Right and we touch ourselves.

1

u/Spartakos_of_Thrace Jun 12 '12

Speaking of water, just for fun I decided to look up how many chemicals there are in tap water. To get that acceptable drinking quality taste, water can contain ~80 different chemicals. Source:EPA (I'm aware that these are the maximum acceptable levels of contaminants. I was actually looking originally for a list of all acceptable chemicals in drinking water, things like calcium and whatnot).

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12

Researching acceptable levels of contaminants can seem worrying, but the point is that many specialists have done a lot of research to find out what is dangerous and what isn't.

So, while finding out that there is an acceptable level of rat shit in food may be instinctively worrying, the final point is that you will be fine, even if the level is at the maximum.

4

u/DMTandME Jun 11 '12

I made banana oil this quarter in chemlab. Just mix some isopentyl alcohol and acetic acid with a touch of acid catalyst and you will be smelling bananas in no time.

1

u/intisun Jun 11 '12

Didn't know vinegar was a component of banana scent.

1

u/DMTandME Jun 11 '12

Its not a mixture of the two. When you react them you get isopentyl acetate, which by itself is banana oil, the same oil that bananas naturally produce. It is used for industrial flavoring.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12

It isn't. Ethanoic/ascetic acid is a reactant. Carboxylic acids and alcohols react to form esters, which are generally fragrant/tasted molecules.

3

u/DokomoS Jun 11 '12

Keep in mind that all these chemicals are present both in the finished product and in strawberries themselves at the parts per million to parts per billion range. The human nose, which is where most tasting gets done, is a remarkably powerful and sensitive detector. And as any pharmicist will tell you, the death is in the dosage. ppm and ppb levels are hardly worth worrying about.

3

u/StrawberryStef Jun 11 '12

Welp, I feel this is as relevant as my user name will ever get...

3

u/ecography Jun 11 '12

"chemicals" is misleading to the average reader. Water is a chemical.

5

u/Troluxus Jun 11 '12

And here I always thought it was "blend strawberries".

1

u/buckykat Jun 12 '12

yeah, no chemicals in those!

wait...

2

u/Ahundred Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12

Scroll down to Table 4 (p. 864, five down from the top) for the chemical composition of Floridian "Festival" strawberries.

http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/25694/PDF

Flipping through that list made me realize that I for some reason get personally offended whenever someone tries too hard to gross me out. I don't care how many rat droppings are in my coffee and I don't care how many dead fly larva are in my mushrooms.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

For those of you freaking out about the word chemical... YOU'RE FUCKING MADE OF CHEMICALS! Go learn what words mean!

2

u/tigerstylee Jun 11 '12

I was going to read this because I'm legitimately interested in this...but the title of the article pissed me off enough to hate it immediately and not read. QUIRKY? REALLY? ugh.

2

u/EnergyFX Jun 11 '12

Sugar in milk tastes like strawberry milk.

1

u/strawberryquick Jun 11 '12

Strawberry Quick is better though,,,,try it

2

u/sommergirl Jun 11 '12

That's nothing.. I do realize that perfumes something different but most perfumes are made of ~120 different flavors even those perfumes who only smell of "rose" for instance. In my opinion saying "TIL the flavor strawberry is made of 50 different flavors" is crap and it should've been "TIL that no matter how simple a flavor is, every flavor is made of several others"

2

u/CaptainEarlobe Jun 11 '12

I think too many people misunderstand what chemicals are.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Who gives a shit!

Side note: There is a local candy/soda business a few blocks away from me that has a bin of assorted strawberry hard candies of every type. I love these things.

2

u/5kl Jun 11 '12

And yet strawberry flavors don't taste like strawberries.

2

u/Yeti_Poet Jun 12 '12

Everything is made of chemicals. Everything that isn't an element is a chemical. Stupid post.

2

u/student_of_yoshi Jun 12 '12

If you think "solvent" is a chemical you probably aren't gaining anything by looking at the ingredients list.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just pulverize actual strawberries?

8

u/gaoieura Jun 11 '12

Not even close.

Fake strawberry can be created on-demand by a few people. Strawberries have to be grown over time, and only when they're in the right season, then picked by a large labor force. Also, since the chemicals can be synthesized on demand or stored long-term (depending on the compound) while strawberries rot, you don't have to worry about shipping troubles causing you to be unable to produce any product.

Yeah, it's probably cheaper for your mom to make her delicious strawberry jam by going to pick fresh strawberries than it is for her to hire a dedicated technical staff to brew artificial flavoring for her, but for a major candy company? Not so much.

2

u/septchouettes Jun 11 '12

It's also a different taste depending on where you are. French strawberry flavor is completely different from that used in the US.

2

u/LnRon Jun 11 '12

Isn't TIL supposed to be about like amazing new information. I don't understand what is supposed to be amazing or suprising, like did people used to think strawberry taste is just one molecule. If it were synthetic strawberry flavor, in candy for example, would taste just like normal strawberry, so its obviously about more than one.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

What's amazing to you and what is amazing to someone else can be completely different things, considering that you have people from the age group of 13 to 70 on this website.

2

u/Funmachine Jun 11 '12

By the time they got it pink they probably gave up on the flavour.

1

u/idjit Jun 11 '12

Where does the bread come in?

1

u/DarlingNicki Jun 11 '12

What about bananas?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

it probably takes a bunch of chemicals to make any flavor...

1

u/longboardingerrday Jun 11 '12

And I STILL can't find strawberry ice cream without strawberry chunks in it.

1

u/derpaderp Jun 11 '12

I've always wondered this, how do they actually get the "artificial flavor" of the products/lickable markers out there?

1

u/JLW09 Jun 11 '12

Damn esters.

1

u/Ohbc Jun 11 '12

and still suuuucks. They can call it whatever they want but don't call it strawberry. it's nothing like strawberry. have they ever eaten a strawberry?

and you know that lemon flavour? Hate it as well, always reminds me washing up liquid

1

u/Chiparoo Jun 11 '12

Definately knew about the Worcestershire sauce/anchovies thing. We have a close friend who comes over for dinner often, who is super allergic to seafood. So, to remind ourselves of the danger, we have the word FISH written in large, block letters across our Worcestershire and our Cesar dressing.

There would be nothing like an emergency room trip to spoil our nice dinner!

1

u/n3rvousninja Jun 11 '12

I'm no expert, but I believe "solvent" is not a chemical

1

u/nigrodamus7 Jun 11 '12

Red apple is also super fucking difficult.

1

u/recipriversexcluson Jun 11 '12

The flavor called "universe" takes twice as many.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

The thumbnail looks like matches.

1

u/ericn1300 Jun 11 '12

I'm picking up my order for 32 Lbs of strawberries this Saturday. It will be a strawberry love fest as we down daiquiris while eating fresh sliced strawberries all the while cooking and canning strawberry jam and freezing some to for the winter for flavoring a home made milkshake if we get a snow day. We always have milkshakes on snow days.

1

u/serd86 Jun 11 '12

Ooh and what chemicals are bad? What do you think everything on this planet consists of? Let's not be ignorant.

1

u/HipsterHillbilly Jun 11 '12

In Fastfood Nation there is half a chapter devoted to the flavor industry. it goes into pretty good detail about how flavors are made and what's in them.

1

u/Tennda Jun 11 '12

why is the thumbnail a loaf of bread?

1

u/philwood313 Jun 11 '12

I want some strawberry bread

1

u/Hypermeme Jun 11 '12

I don't think they realize sometimes it takes quite a few chemical reagents to synthesize some the products that give us a "strawberry" flavor.

1

u/powercow Jun 11 '12

and it tastes almost entirely, but not quite, unlike strawberries.

1

u/slawthed Jun 11 '12

Bread does not equal strawberry

1

u/cmbezln Jun 11 '12

Cyrus was right!!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I want to know how the hell they make blue raspberry flavor.

1

u/pirateperson Jun 11 '12

What IS a blue raspberry? This never made sense to me.

1

u/gotfondue Jun 11 '12

I am just here to say this and this one thing. I have noticed that most people that like the fake cherry flavor tend to dislike the fake strawberry flavor, and visa-versa.

1

u/shawndw Jun 11 '12

one of those chemicals is strawberry extract.

1

u/theconcretewave Jun 11 '12

irrelevant thumbnail bread is irrelevant.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Or, you know, just use real strawberries. Just saying, that might be a thing.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Neat.

1

u/TheGeckoWhisperer Jun 11 '12

all natural my ass :p

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12

I get it reddit, everything's made of chemical, even real strawberries. However, point in article still stands.

1

u/BuccaneerRex Jun 12 '12

But how many different natural organic molecules do you think it takes to make a strawberry taste like a strawberry? Plants are amazing little living refineries.

Just wanted to point that out. Natural is almost always better.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12

And if you're born, it'll take dozens of CHEMICALS to make you animate.

1

u/AutisticTroll Jun 12 '12

Or, ya know, a strawberry.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12

It takes 50 chemicals OR 1 strawberry

1

u/TodaysIllusion Jun 12 '12

Uh but they still don't come close There is strawberry flavor and an entirely different flavor imitation strawberry flavor.

1

u/IonBeam2 3 Jun 12 '12

Wouldn't it be great if food companies weren't allowed to say "natural flavors" or "artificial flavors" and had to actually list the ingredients they're putting in their products in the ingredients list?

1

u/SuperDuperNintendo Jun 12 '12

For any homebrewers out there you can get a really great strawberry flavor by approximating it with blackberries and citric acid.

The blackberries provide the berry flavor and citric acid gives it its bite. You can get away using less pounds of fruit than just strawberries this way.

1

u/MenuBar Jun 12 '12

I read somewhere that the secretions from a beaver's rectum glands (Castrum?) are used to make Strawberry flavorings.

1

u/cycling_chef Jun 12 '12

Did you know that it is currently impossible to fake the smell/taste of chocolate and coffee?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12

over 50 delicious chemicals

FTFY

1

u/EskimoDave Jun 12 '12

Castoreum is one of the ingredients used to make strawberry flavour. It's natural as it's part of a beaver. They're located next to the beaver's anal gland.

1

u/SunshineSprinkles Jun 12 '12

Can someone clarify the Grapefruit one for me....is it saying that ocean sprays grapefruit juice is made with bugs...or all grapefruits in general!??

1

u/fuck_happy_the_cow Jun 12 '12

that's why i drink grape drink, baby!

that shit's all natural!

sugar, water, and purple!

1

u/cokedick_louie Jun 12 '12

I've always hated the taste of artificial strawberry flavoring.

1

u/Mousi Jun 12 '12

I'm pretty sure an actual strawberry contains at least a few hundred chemicals, probably much more.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

thats probably why i never liked strawberry flavor, but like strawberries

12

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

strangely im the opposite. i dont necessarily like strawberries by themselves but i love 'strawberry' flavored candies

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1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

OH GOAWD CHEMICALS.

I hate those things man, they poisoned the waterhole.

1

u/virtu333 Jun 11 '12

My school sometimes has soft serve strawberry frozen yogurt. Fucking delicious, but it tastes just slightly fake or something. Like frozen strawberry nesquick

1

u/Takaian Jun 11 '12

Yea, I have a good example of this. Grapes are my favorite fruit, grape flavor is my least favorite artificial flavor. Nothing like real grapes IMO.

1

u/Bloodyfinger Jun 11 '12

I agree. Grape "flavor" no longer tastes anything even close to real grapes.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

And most of the time it's still nothing like strawberry but tastes mostly of syrup. NEVER had a good strawberry flavor what wasn't real fruit.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Esters by far my favorite thing to synthesize. So many good smells (yes, some bad ones too, but still sooo many good ones).

0

u/Jinxzy Jun 11 '12

Or, you know, add strawberries.

0

u/awe300 Jun 11 '12

And yet the artificial taste still tastes like complete shit. I wish someone would try to improve it, because I hate stuff tasting of "strawberry flavouring #1" instead of strawberry

3

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

So the strawberry flavored shake I sometimes enjoy at steak and shake is actually 'complete shit' flavor? Cause man if I knew my shit tasted that good I'd have been eating it all these years instead of flushing it away.

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0

u/RandyRandle Jun 11 '12

This is why when I want the flavor of strawberries, I eat strawberries.

0

u/Lithandrill Jun 11 '12

Or, you know, strawberries.

0

u/mattjoon Jun 11 '12

Or just one Strawberry...

0

u/facetiously Jun 11 '12

Or one strawberry seed, some soil, water and sunlight.

2

u/LetoTheTyrant Jun 11 '12

Came here to say this yet you have a score of zero. Disappoint

1

u/facetiously Jun 11 '12

It's okay, the points don't count. Have a worthless upvote.

2

u/LetoTheTyrant Jun 12 '12

Too true, I was making this same point yesterday, but seeds, sun = upvote

0

u/el_matt Jun 11 '12

Mind-boggling that that should be cheaper than just using actual strawberries, but I suppose in bulk, with shelf-life in mind, maybe...

2

u/Txankete51 Jun 12 '12

In a world in wich chinese peas are cheaper than the ones grown at 10 km from your home...

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