A three-column infographic, titled “Faking Flavors with Chemistry,” explaining how artificial flavors are formulated and produced.
The first column highlights three early artificial flavors: vanillin (vanilla, 1870s), methyl anthranilate (grape, early 1900s), and diacetyl (butter, 1920s).
The second column points out that it’s more common for flavors to have several chemical contributors. Chemists determine these using analytical methods. The primary method used is gas chromatography, which separates compounds in a sample according to their boiling points and solubilities. The output tells us how much of each compound is present, and the chromatograph can be connected to a mass spectrometer and a sniff port for further identifying information.
The third column discusses how flavor molecules are made once they’ve been identified. Usually, they’re extracted from plants or made in the lab. However, chemists are turning to biotechnological methods, which allow them to market produced flavor molecules as natural. One method is biosynthesis, in which microbes metabolize simple chemical building blocks to make flavor compounds over multiple reaction steps. Another method is biotransformation, which uses microbes or their isolated enzymes to make flavor compounds from a similar starting substance in simple reactions.
For over a century, chemists have made flavor molecules to evoke particular tastes. How do they know which compounds create a particular flavor, and how do they make these molecules? cen.acs.org/food/food-sc...
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