Latest / Ridiculous History / The Preposterous History of Artificial Flavors, Part Two: Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing

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The Preposterous History of Artificial Flavors, Part Two: Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for tuning in.
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  Speaker 2: Mommy, Who's who? Mommy? I love that?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Who's Who's that man over there in the corner, Why
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: it's the Willie Wonk of Ridiculous History. Our super producer,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And over here in a different corner, in this corner,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in that corner, that's the one.
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  Speaker 2: I'm in the snow brown And who are you?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah, I'm I'm Ben Bullen. They call me here.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: We never say our last name. This may well be
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a first.
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  Speaker 3: I wonder if there was anyone out there blissfully unaware
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  Speaker 3: of our.
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  Speaker 2: Last names, and we've just ruined everything for them.
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  Speaker 1: I think I think people are read onto this and
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  Speaker 1: hopefully read onto part one of our exploration of the
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  Speaker 1: preposterous history of artificial flavors now Noel. When we when
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  Speaker 1: we last left you without a Dope beat the step two.
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  Speaker 1: We spent a lot of time looking at the strange
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: evolution of vanilla and vanilla in which may well be
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  Speaker 1: my favorite word of the week.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, chilling like a vanilla and villain that's here we
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  Speaker 3: do is yeah, it's so and you know, and we
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  Speaker 3: and we did decide to make this its own part
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  Speaker 3: because the rest of the stuff that we have is
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  Speaker 3: easily it's another episode which you're.
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  Speaker 2: Gonna here right now.
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  Speaker 3: But Vanilla does feel like the kind of foundation on
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  Speaker 3: which the entirety of artificial flavoring is laid, and it
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  Speaker 3: gets a lot more twisted and complicated, and even like
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  Speaker 3: the set in the last episode for the Cliff had been,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: there's a little intrigue, perhaps some industrial espionage type stuff, right, Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 3: I did want to offer an apropos of something I guess,
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  Speaker 3: a quick surprise for the top of the show, where
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  Speaker 3: in last episode we started by expressing our wonderment and
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  Speaker 3: appreciation of the Japanese KitKat bars and googling that and
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  Speaker 3: looking for some places you could get those, and seeing
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  Speaker 3: what flavors were available. I discovered that KitKat actually has
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  Speaker 3: a sake, not at that tastes like sake, but a
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  Speaker 3: sake that tastes like kit cat.
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  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, has science gone too far?
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  Speaker 2: I think it may have.
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  Speaker 3: And this is their description for indulge in Kitkat's latest
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  Speaker 3: and boldest creation sake flavored Kidkat exclamation mark. These Japan
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  Speaker 3: limited edition kitkats are infused with sake powder and see.
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  Speaker 3: Oh man, the Mobius strip just continues because now I'm
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  Speaker 3: looking and seeing that it is in fact KitKat that
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  Speaker 3: tastes like sake, but it comes in a package that looks.
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  Speaker 1: Like a bottle of sake. But they do actually have
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  Speaker 1: alcohol content.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, there's a little caveats that uses zero point four
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  Speaker 3: percent alcohol. Please refrain from serving if you are a
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  Speaker 3: child or have difficulty drinking alcohol, meaning it could be
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  Speaker 3: just enough to trigger you and get you.
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  Speaker 2: Back on the wagon. Off the wagon, which was the
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  Speaker 2: bad one.
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  Speaker 1: I can't you know, I'm not the expert old wagons.
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  Speaker 1: But the one thing, you know, this reminds me a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of context funny story. So Brandy, my girlfriend,
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  Speaker 1: told me recently. She was reading to me some warnings
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  Speaker 1: in Japanese about these kind of treats with alcohol in them,
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  Speaker 1: and there was one that translated roughly to do not
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  Speaker 1: show to children. Yes, like it's weird, like don't show
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  Speaker 1: it to them. But we should also say that the
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  Speaker 1: kit kat is popular in Japan. It could be its
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  Speaker 1: own episode. Honestly, because of the because of a weird
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  Speaker 1: thing about language. It goes back to the phrase in
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  Speaker 1: Japanese kito.
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  Speaker 3: Oh so KitKat has some inherent meaning as is yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: so in Japanese who pronounce it kito kato, which sounds
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  Speaker 3: a lot like kito katsu, which translates to fri wild
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  Speaker 3: you will definitely win, oh Japanese.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But isn't katsu also like a style of thinly pounded
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  Speaker 1: like chicken cutlets. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah katsu
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  Speaker 1: means winning chicken wins winter winter chicken.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And this is uh, this is just a brief look
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  Speaker 1: into how weird artificial flavoring is. Spoiler alert, folks. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: chocolate does not naturally taste of sake, which is a
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  Speaker 1: an alcoholic beverage derived from rice.
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  Speaker 2: Correct, that is right, Yeah, fermented rice.
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  Speaker 3: And we talked at the top of the previous episode
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  Speaker 3: about how those processes that were initially designed to preserve
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  Speaker 3: things ultimately led to like a sea change in like
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  Speaker 3: flavor expectations and experimentations.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, flavor Expectations is also a great name for your
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: next synth album.
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  Speaker 2: Not bad.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: We've been really searching for a name for a project.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Anyone out there has any suggestions.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Got a two person kind of electronic dancy experimental project.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Really Charlie struggling beating our heads against the wall, trying
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: to find a proper name.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm going to put that on the list.
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  Speaker 1: Ben's for an album name.
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  Speaker 2: I take.
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  Speaker 1: I think Huckleberry ain't bad though. Huckleberry's not a little goofy.
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  Speaker 2: It's a little white.
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  Speaker 1: It's a little dancy.
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  Speaker 2: Well dancy, So I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know what, we'll work this together off.
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  Speaker 2: Appreciate that, man.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, to the matter at hand, Fellow ridiculous historians, we
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  Speaker 1: tease this. We want to, with the help of several sources,
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  Speaker 1: give you what Wisconsin would call the straight poop on
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  Speaker 1: artificial flavors. They first enter the historical record in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty one. Modern Synthetic Flavoring and flavor Science. There's an
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  Speaker 1: exhibition in London called the Crystal Palace. It's a Victorian showcase,
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  Speaker 1: kind of like the World's Fair with all the world's
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  Speaker 1: hot new technologies.
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  Speaker 2: It's very.
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  Speaker 1: It's very ted talkie, you know, different. Oh look at
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  Speaker 1: this innovation kind of things, right, And if you're visiting
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  Speaker 1: the Crystal Palace, you are also meeting a lot of
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  Speaker 1: perfume experts from Paris, from London, all sorts of places
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  Speaker 1: in Europe, and you will visit the stalls and you
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  Speaker 1: can try candy. You can try candy the taste of
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  Speaker 1: pear or grape, or apple or pineapple. And the thing is,
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  Speaker 1: the candy flavor is not coming from the actual fruits.
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  Speaker 1: It's coming from compounds synthesized in laboratories, all flavored with chemicals.
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  Speaker 1: All these candies are flavored with chemicals that were discovered
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  Speaker 1: not on purpose, but on accident by scientists in a
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  Speaker 1: brand spanking new field called organic chemistry.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, basically byproducts of other experiments that they then kind
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  Speaker 3: of oh, I'm gonna put that in my back pocket
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  Speaker 3: for later, and then the next thing.
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  Speaker 2: You know, this whole new industry.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, because you're right, as a field of scientific study,
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  Speaker 3: organic chemistry is relatively modern. And that's also a pretty
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  Speaker 3: complex field. That is, you know, people specialize in that.
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  Speaker 3: I think there was you could take organic chemistry classes,
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  Speaker 3: like if you are like AP level type smart.
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  Speaker 1: I have such admiration for chemists.
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  Speaker 2: It's alchemy, man.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is the it is the descendant of alchemy
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  Speaker 1: one hundred percent and I still have nightmares about having
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to calculate moles or whatever they're called. But that joke
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  Speaker 1: for the chemist in the crowd aside. Could we really
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: quickly to sum up what the field of organic chemistry
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: is does don't have to do with structure properties and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: kind of synthesizing things based on their molecular structure.
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  Speaker 2: And then the number of you know, bonds or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: They have in order to make something that has similar properties,
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  Speaker 3: which can include flavor.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the scientific study of the structure, properties, and
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  Speaker 1: reactions of organic materials, which sounds way way more simple
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  Speaker 1: than it actually is. I genuinely do have nightmares about,
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  Speaker 1: you know, my time in the trenches of chemistry.
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  Speaker 3: No doubt, and that was never my particular wheelhouse. But
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  Speaker 3: I do you know, know enough, just enough about it
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  Speaker 3: to be dangerous, literally dangerous. If I were trying to
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  Speaker 3: mess with this stuff cold in a lab, I would
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  Speaker 3: probably end up in a bit of a meth labby
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  Speaker 3: explosion any kind of situation act, or you would accidentally
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  Speaker 3: create the artificial flavor of pum quats or something.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, certainly it's possible. Let's also not forget
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  Speaker 1: that this was a time end of the nineteenth century
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  Speaker 1: where there wasn't very much regulation.
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  Speaker 2: Around this brand new field.
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  Speaker 3: So it was almost a little bit more trickery in
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  Speaker 3: certain ways. Like I don't know that it was necessarily
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  Speaker 3: malicious inherently, but it was like they weren't exactly saying,
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  Speaker 3: this candy has zero percent kum quat in it.
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  Speaker 2: You know, this.
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  Speaker 1: Candy is only red because of this gnarly chemical dye
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  Speaker 1: that we used to make it that color.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The Crystal Palace ex phibition was very much a large
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  Speaker 1: scale show and tell, you know, and they're like, well,
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  Speaker 1: it's fair kind of situation exactly. They're like, hey, look
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  Speaker 1: at this. Isn't this weird because you can tell this
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  Speaker 1: is not an actual apple. Let's go to August Hoffman,
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  Speaker 1: who was a member of the Royal Society, a distinguished chemist.
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  Speaker 1: He analyzed the chemicals powering these imitation flavors, and he
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  Speaker 1: made a report to the jury of the Crystal Palace Exhibition,
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  Speaker 1: and he wrote the following He said, this striking similarity
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  Speaker 1: of the smell of these ethos to that of fruit
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  Speaker 1: had not escaped the observation of chemistry, So okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he was. He also gave people homework. He said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: if you're smart, you will be the person who has
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  Speaker 1: to understand the commercial possibilities of how these chemicals taste
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  Speaker 1: of natural you know, agriculture.
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  Speaker 2: That's absolutely right.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, moving on a little bit into the
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  Speaker 3: future where we get the soda fountain craze, you know,
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  Speaker 3: of the pharmacies where a big part of it was
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  Speaker 3: these young these kids, these show soshas and these greasers
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  Speaker 3: come in and kicking it at the soda fountain and
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: get in there whatever it was cream sodas or their
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  Speaker 3: egg creams or whatever. And a big part of this
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  Speaker 3: was artificial flavoring in syrups, which, of course, the connection
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  Speaker 3: between the history of artificial flavoring and syrups are they intersect,
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  Speaker 3: but like syrups were initially made with like real fruit
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  Speaker 3: extracts or real whatever, almost more like a jam or something,
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  Speaker 3: you know. But then because of the reasons we addressed
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: in the last episode, artificial flavoring presents such an economic
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  Speaker 3: opportunity to no longer have to worry about fresh produce
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  Speaker 3: or things spoiling or whatever.
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  Speaker 2: You can just use this this substance.
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  Speaker 3: And a cream soda vendor told the Massachusetts Board of
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  Speaker 3: Health inspector who was coming to take a look at
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  Speaker 3: his I guess, you know, equipment or whatever for like
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  Speaker 3: a health inspection in the eighteen seventies. That quote, customers
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  Speaker 3: can't distinguish the artificial from the true fruit flavors, and some,
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  Speaker 3: if properly made, actually prefer the imitation. But again, kind
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  Speaker 3: of don't think they were differentiating. They weren't saying this
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  Speaker 3: is artificial, this is all natural, which then became like
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  Speaker 3: a badge of you know, branding in and of itself.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: All natural, right, only natural. We'll get into the whole
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: natural flavoring thing, which well, yeah, and check out our
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: earlier episode. There are so many weird historical sodas for
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  Speaker 3: some extra credit.
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  Speaker 1: In most cases. In the early days, we see that
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  Speaker 1: the first artificial fruit flavors involved single chemicals or simple
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  Speaker 1: combinations of substances what we call esther's diluted in alcohol,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of writers of the time in these
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: early days of synthetic flavor science, they noted that these
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  Speaker 1: pleasant fruity chemicals derived from substances that just smell terrible
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: on their own, including stuff like fusel oil. Fusel oil
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  Speaker 1: which was a just terrible smelling waste product of fermenting alcohol,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and you combine them together right, and then they create
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  Speaker 1: something that is actually enjoyable, And not every experiment was
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: a home run. We got to shout out this thing.
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  Speaker 1: We found on popsi dot com in eighteen sixty four,
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  Speaker 1: one guy, talking about the new era of flavor science said, quote,
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  Speaker 1: artificial essences of nearly every fruit are made, some of
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  Speaker 1: which are absolutely perfect in their resemblance to the real
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: fruit essence, while others leave a great deal to the imagination.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like for every one successful pineapple flavor,
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  Speaker 1: they had a dozen just terrible mishaps.
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  Speaker 3: One hundred percent, and some of those mishaps or even
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: perhaps the additives and the ingredients that were not necessarily
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: the safest for consumers made it out into the market
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: because we did not yet have the Pure Food and
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Drug Act, which is an important federal law that of
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: course established the FDA. Maybe didn't establish the FDA, but
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: they definitely were growing together in lockstep. I can't kind
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: of can't remember the chronology there, but the point is
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of these flavors, once they started flooding the market,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: there started to be kind of a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: concern right from the public about like.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Ooh is this safe?
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  Speaker 3: Am I being like kind of low key poisoned by
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: this stuff?
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  Speaker 2: Or is it just gonna taste kind of icky?
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  Speaker 3: Or if it tastes really good, is that because it
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: has some delightful toxin in it?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the age of yellow journalism, right of
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the muckrakers, and so chemicals used in quote unquote fake
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: flavoring were often associated in the court of public opinion
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: with contamination, and food safety was a crucial political issue.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I would argue food safety is a crucial political issue
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: today in the United States. People were eating spoiled canned goods.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Upton Sinclair did not just make up the jungle on
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: his own. He was talking about this huge problem right
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: with regulation, and these journalists said, look how nasty the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: production facilities are for your dairy and your meat, And
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: people reading this naturally started to become naturally, naturally started
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to become just let it happen.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Warry of chemical additives, preservatives, flavors, coloring, artificial coloring is
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: still a big deal.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: Because yellow and a yellow five red for forty Yeah, exactly,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: not deadly, but not probably the best to consume in
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: large quantities a lot like things like saccarin artificial sweeteners,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: which is its own thing. Where in certain lab studies
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: feeding tiny mice absolutely heroic quantities of this stuff sure
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: can cause them to develop cancer quantities that a human
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: being would likely to ever consume in a lifetime. Not
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: saying to discount these studies, but it is a little
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: bit of a thin thumb.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: On the scale kind of situation here.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: But did want to add that FDA, Federal Drug Administration,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: was in fact created to enforce the Pure Food and
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Drug Act of nineteen oh six, so absolutely lockstep with
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: those those items there.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: And it was a very smart thing for Uncle Sam
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to do because at this point in history, in the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds, without this regulation, a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: lot of private manufacturers were using preservatives and flavoring and
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: coloring not to improve their product, but to conceal damage
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: or to conceal contamination.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: It's like to make as much money as possible by
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: using the cheapest, most shoddy ingredients possible.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Going back to the old story about chocolate milk, right,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: you know that one.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: You'll have to remind you of that one. But wouldn't
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: you say.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: This is also kind of in lockstep with snake oil
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: remedies and things like that using crazy amounts of alcohol.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Like I always think of the I Love Lucy Vitamina
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: veggamin commercial where it really is just tons of alcohol.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: But there were folks that were putting forth these remedies
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: that supposedly could cure all kinds of stuff with absolutely zero.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Efficacy or backup. But yeah, Talma tell us about chocolate milk.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: So the myth about chocolate milk is that dairy producers
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: would get you know, your regular milk, right, you know,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: it's white ish, but then they would also get milk
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: that had blood clots in it or other fluids. Okay,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: they still want to sell it, so they color it
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: differently and flavor it as chocolate.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: That's a myth. Oh, this is like pink lemona and
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: cloud clown pants all over events.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, So what we're saying is there are problems again
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: that need to be addressed. And this nineteen oh six law,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the Pure Food and Drug Act, had consequences for flavoring additives.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: For the very first time in the United States. The
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: law created an imperfect distinction between natural and artificial ingredients.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Or products.
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  Speaker 1: So products that were flavored with synthetic chemicals had to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: clearly proclaim themselves as imitation or compound on their labels.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And it was meant to protect the consumers. It was
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: meant to say, hey, if you're buying something and it
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: tastes like a strawberry, but it's not made with strawberries,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you should be able to discern that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: And to double back to something I asked in the
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: first episode, I did just look it up. You mentioned
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: compound or imitation, but concentrate is also another category, and
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: just to you know, put this out there if anyone
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: was wondering. It appears to be a substance that has
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: had most of its diluting agent removed, such.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: As water from fruit.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: So fruit juice concentrate is made by filtering and dehydrating
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: actual fruit juice to remove the water content. The concentrate
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: that's left over is then pasteurized and heated and frozen
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: and transported before the water is added back. So that
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: isn't technically artificial, but it also has a similar kind
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: of wrap in a way, the idea of concentrating.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly right, Because again it's the court of
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: public opinion or I would even say, the court of
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  Speaker 1: public comfort, how comfortable are we with purchasing and ingesting
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: these things? And you know, the folks in the flavor
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: extraction or manufacturing industry at this point, the ones who
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: are reputable, the ones who are not trying to grift
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: or sell snake oil or dangerous chemicals. They were pretty
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: on board with this law in nineteen oh.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Six, as they should be, because it's like it levels
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: the playing field and it makes it where there can't
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: be bad actors that are going to mess with their customers,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: and it allows them to kind of rise above the
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: fray as being Look, we were doing this all along,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like there's no reason they
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be excited about them and these guys, to your point,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: while they supported this nineteen oh six law, they also
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: had to weigh.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Campaign.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a pr blitz, we would call it against the
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Court of public comfort. And they said, you know a
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: lot of these slurs against our industry are not based
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: on facts. Our products are not necessarily impure if you
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: think about it, they said, by the chemical definition and purity,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: our synthetic flavors are much purer than.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: The thing, the real thing, and what I was getting
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: at earlier, Ben was they I could see how they'd
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: be on board because it'd give that they gave them
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to kind of say it was these other
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: fly by night type operations that were the bad actors.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: We've had your best interest at heart from the start.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Now let us educate you as now the newly minted
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: kind of like authority on the subject, at least in
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: the marketplace kind of right.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, you're absolutely right, Noll. It was such a
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: big deal that they formed a trade group called the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association. The first FEMA.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, that's right.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Not to be confused with the other FEMA, you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: with the disaster relief and all of that they did.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: They joined their powers, you know, they touched rings Wonder
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Twins style, only there were three of them, and they
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: decided to combine their powers. Combined, they are captain Planet
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: in the form of an organized, very targeted ad campaign.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Did you mentioned already some version of this, but at
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: this point this was like the big push where they
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: all combined their powers to combat these negative public opinions
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: about artificial flavors with terms like adulterants, food poisoners and
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: drug dopsters.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Being flung around, you know.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: The public, this idea of like, oh, they're all the crooks,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a bunch of crooks trying to poison us. Yeah, exactly,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: this was very much a Wild West situation. We'd like
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: to introduce you to get ready for this name ridiculous historians.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Alois Vaughan, I Isakovic's.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Also his company name is dope. Yeah. He founded a company.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: He was a chemist and founded this company called Sinfleuur. Yes,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: it's very sci fi, very Isaac Asimov.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And he was on board with this nineteen oh six law.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: He was kind of the Steve Jobs of synthetic aromatic
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: chemical companies, and he said, you know what, the great
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: thing about this pure food and drug act is it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: increasing the sale of all my stuff. In nineteen oh eight,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: he wrote the following, Noel, can you give us a
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: cool voice for this one?
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: Previously the chemist did not get credit for the work
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: he did because many a manufacturer made a synthetic flavor
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: and labeled it genuine when it was in reality made
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: from synthetic substances entirely. Today the product is labeled truthfully
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: and sells just as well, proving conclusively that the public
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: will buy a product just as quickly when labeled properly.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: And I think this is interesting because, like I said,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: it did even the playing field where at least they
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: knew what they knew. Then everything was kind of regulated
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: in such a way where there weren't any of these
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: totally bad actors just sneaking horrible stuff into the marketplace,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: therefore also contaminating along with the food, the reputations of
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: reputable companies, lumping them all in together.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very well. Put Man also Isakovic is advocating
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: in the public sphere. He's saying, look, synthetic flavoring isn't bad.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: We are on the precipice of the future. And took
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: out to our point about an information campaign, took out
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of advertisements to try to win hearts and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: minds in a nineteen thirteen issue of a magazine called
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review, kind of a trade publication. Yeah,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: specific I love my subscription lapse.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I really got to get back on this. You gotta
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: get right on my guy.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: But so he he helmed an advertisement that said the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: following Vanillu.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Deer v a n I L L word Dee you are.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Vanilu door is the only material in existence that will
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: duplicate in its entirety the fragrance of the finest vanilla bean.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: In fact, it is something better than vanilla beans an invitation.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Under the Pure Food Law, they were required to include
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the very last part here quote it develops much finer,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: more intense vanilla effects than the finest beans, owing to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the entire absence of impurities and resinous matter. So they're
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: trying to sell it as a positive, but the government
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: required them to explicitly point out this was not from
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the actual vanilla bean.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: I do also like that caveat that, like disclaimer, imitation
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: is capitalized almost like God is in the Bible, and
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: I love that. It also kind of is a feature,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: not a bug, because it's an indication that this was
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: all done on the up and up under the guidelines
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: of the Pure Food Law. So it had this sort
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: of built in comfort factor. It's like sort of like, Okay,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: we're good because someone's looking out for us now and
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: no one can just you know, shove anything they want
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: down our throats.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So they're arguing against the idea of the real McCoy,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: which is an episode we should do in the future,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the Hatfields and the McCoy's. The message here is clear,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: synthetics can be better than the quote unquote real thing,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and so government scientists have to follow through on the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: man dates of the Pure Food Law of nineteen oh six.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: So these g men scientists have to distinguish authentic stuff
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: from synthetic stuff. And this gets really complicated because vanillin, which,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: as we found in part one of this episode, vanillain,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: was synthesized in the eighteen seventies, but the synthetic chemical
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: itself is identical to the molecule found in nature. It's
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: kind of like comparing natural diamonds to lab created diamonds.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: They're pretty much the same thing.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Which has now become kind of known, right. Isn't that
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: really wrecking shop a little bit in the diamond industry,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: where now they can make lab grown diamonds that, for
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: all intents and purposes, are just as pretty, just as
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: shiny and and remarkable as the real ones, but also
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: don't cause people to lose their lives. And you know,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: it just seems like a no brainer. But there's also
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: part of the weird thing that humans do where they
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: only want something if it causes somebody else to suffer.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Ooh, I am profoundly disturbed by how deep that observation is.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: There's something gross, right, you're right. So, speaking of complicated relationships,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: we also know that there was a strange sort of
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: retro active recognition, so the relationship between a flavored chemical
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: in a given additive and the genuine article it was impersonating.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: These were often unknown. Perhaps the best example is something
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: called methyl anthnihilate. It was widely used to make grape
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: flavored candy and other you know, sodas and stuff. It
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: was used for like ten years before someone found the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: chemical in actual grapes. This is a very true case
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of faking it till you make it. And we know
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that before the late nineteen thirties, people were kind of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: just freestyling on the idea of flavored chemicals. And this
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean they were bad. It just means that the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: idea of taste is quite complex the science. Everything you
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: taste that may have a distinctive you know, mouthfeel, or
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: distinctive aroma or flavor, it's going to be the result
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: of dozens or hundreds of different chemicals. Each of these
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: is usually in the natural world, present in very very
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: small quantities like parts per million or even less. And
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: flavor chemicals also, they're trying to impersonate this very nuanced agglomeration,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: and they can be volatile and reactive. It took a
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: lot of work to do this, but humanity soldiered on.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: As more and more food was produced in factories, the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: demand for flavor additives just increased because, like you were
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: saying earlier in episode, what processed food has a lot
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of high heat and other conditions involved in its production.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: They change the way the food looks, taste, or smells,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and they usually change it for the worst. Shout out
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to anyone who's eating an MRI.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I know, you're always I don't know if
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: you're singing their praises exactly, you're singing something about them,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: if they fascinate you, I know, And I don't think
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: I've never actually had a chance to try one.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: We have to, I do. We should do an MRI
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: date sometime. That sounds weird, are you in? Yeah, I
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Probably the condition won't allow it. I think they'll probably
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: kill him dead on the spot. Whatever is in those.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I can't have any preservative.
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: They will literally will those things are ninety preservative.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: That's like the whole point of an mre.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: Right, that's like that's where all the calories come from. Yes, preservative.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, will you hang out and watch us? Seat mrs.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: That's a little kinky. I don't know nothing weird.
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna watch you, but we got I'm gonna wait
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: for you all look away. I'm gonna inject you with
• 31:00
  Speaker 6: condition beforehand.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: You can't weaponize the condition.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I can do whatever, though, Okay, all right, I don't
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: know if it's you don't have the chops or the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: or the stones.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: So I gotta say really quickly though.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: But I did promise a taste of some intrigue, and
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to mention I'd love to just have
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: a quick, you know, chat about this, the idea of
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: secret ingredients. Yes, so I found this article from the
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Center for Science in the Public Interest from March nineteenth
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: of this year. Actually, secret ingredients lurk in food hidden
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: as artificial flavor. In quotes natural flavor and spices. Because
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: we know the whole lore behind you know, our fabled
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Coca Cola company here in Atlanta, the idea that the
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: secret ingredients for the coke, flavor, the syrup or whatever
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: can never be all of it, can't be in one
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: place at the same time, or like the two executives
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: that possess it, can't be on the same plane or something,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: you know, crazy stuff like that, And that's a proprietary
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: trade secret.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: But ah does the FDA know?
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: They must?
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not a wonder.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: So there's this loophole apparently that the FDA allows that
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: allows companies to use terms like natural flavors, artificial flavors,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: et cetera. These terms that were baked into the Federal Food,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Drug and Cosmetic Act, which otherwise required specific ingredients to
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: be like listed, you know, on on the label. They
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: are allowed to use these catch all terms to disguise
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: specific ingredients. But then the question becomes, and that's posed
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: by this article, who decides when a flavor substance is safe?
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: And the short answer here is that it's largely up
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: to food manufacturers to decide to paths to choose. One
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: is for coming to submit a formal food added petition
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: to the FDA that includes information that substantiates the safety
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: of the substance of the ingredients or the FDA can
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: perform a safety assessment on the substance that I guess
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: doesn't require them to know exactly what's in it.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And also the idea of the secret recipe depends
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: upon not just the ingredients, but the order of operations,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the combinations right, the temperatures, the applications, So that part
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: can still say secret. A lot of the research from
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: these early flavor companies was proprietary. It was their secret sauce.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: It was a black box. Yeah.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: And it is the last thing quote from the CSPI,
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: which was the Center for Science in the Public Interest
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: here just saying American consumers are likely laboring under the
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: false impression that the FDA reviews and affirms the safety
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: to the flavor additives used in food. The fact of
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: the matter is that the FDA has largely abandoned its
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: role in approving new flavor chemicals and has handed its
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: authority over to the food companies themselves, which is an
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: obvious conflict of interest and keeps consumers from knowing what's
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: in their food.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and youre's your intrigue there it is.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: You can also speaking of intrigue, you can hear war
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: stories from scientists in the trenches of the early days
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: of synthetic flavoring, Folks like James Broderick, who said when
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: he began his career as a flavor chemist in the
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, he was on a hunt. He was given
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: one of those situations where it's like, this is your mission,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: should you choose to accept it? But instead of overthrowing,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: you know, a far flung country, he had to find
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: a peach flavor made by a company out of Cincinnati
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: called Fries and Fries. He and a team of chemists
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: tried repeatedly and failed repeatedly to duplicate this artificial peach flavor.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: This was like corporate espionage level kind of stuff. So
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of weird things here, but we have
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: to remember that the science of artificial flavoring, the history
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: of artificial flavoring, like so much great scientific innovation, it
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: comes through accident. You're aiming for one thing, you hit
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: another target. Our buddy Broderick learned that one of the
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: essential components in this peach flavor he was pursuing was
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: made by accident. It was a mistake in the processing
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: of castor oil, and when they messed up the castor
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: oil process. The chemist looked around and they were like,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: why does this whole room reek of peaches?
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't mind that. I like the smell of beaches. Yeah,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: peaches for me, right, peaches for free? Yeah, millions of beaches.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: And another here's a gross part though. Another secret component
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: in this peach flavor from fries and fries was apparent,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: and fries is great.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: I just want that to be a restaurant that only
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: sells and yes there.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: One of the other key players in their artificial peach
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: flavor was an alcohol soaked wedge of cheese that they
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: left by a basement furnace.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: EO, mommy, indeed I can smell it, or just that
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: description little acrid, I think probably like dirty diaper vibes
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: would probably be in effect.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: The flavor industry obviously continues in the modern day, shows
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: no signs of becoming any less cool nor any less ridiculous.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: But noel Max before go the promised banana mystery, The.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Promised banana mystery.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Gotta do it.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: We've got it, like we've all we're adults, we've all
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: eaten banana flavored candy. Just out of context. I'm going
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: to keep that sentence. I'm gonna post that somewhere. We're
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: all adults. We've all eaten banana flavored candy.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Put it on a slap it on a bumper sticker.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: I can't eat banana conditions.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the candy, No, I can't sure. The candy.
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: Is like, literally, it is.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Kryptonite Russian basically. Yeah, it's a group.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: Maybe it hits, maybe it doesn't.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: That's fun.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: It's for the kids, Colin. Let's play a little culinary
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Russian roulette.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: But no, it is weird, right that.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Like you know, I mentioned at the top of the
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: show episode one, I like a grape flavored soda, but
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: I don't particularly care for a grape and I think
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: that's largely because of the texture. I don't like the popping.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: But yet I also like caviar and I like boba,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: So what's wrong with me?
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Now? Same deal with banana banana flavor and the flavor
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: of a banana, a ripe banana and a banana shaped
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: tiny runt, you know, you know the ones.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: There's an essence, there's a vibe that they share, but
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: that's about it, and.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: It's almost like an illusory kind of like vibe of
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: the mind where it's like, because it's shaped like a banana,
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: you sort of think it tastes a little like a banana,
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: but really couldn't be farther from the truth, And it
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: turns out that it actually goes the other way around.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Modern bananas don't taste the way bananas used to, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: the candy is what they used to taste like.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Kind of right, Yeah, that's that's the myth. And we've
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: talked about it in previous episodes. Also next at some point,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have to say yes to some sort of
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: food you have to you gotta eat, Max.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you got some gluten free bread, I got you.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: There's some really good gluten free bakeries here in town.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Hell yeah, gluten free. Yeah yeah, just some gluten free pastries.
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: To be completely off topic, but relevant to what we're
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: talking about right here. When I was actually in New York,
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: I deviated from the condition because, as both y'all know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: it's not a permanent condition.
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: Temporary it comes in. It's just like, well it's good, Well.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: It came run.
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: No, yeah, it'll it'll It'll go away at one point
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: and I'll be back to normal.
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: And so I ate some street hot dogs in New
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: York and and I'm still still a live.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: I'm just glad that you survived, Max, that's all.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And with this.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: We have to bust the myth. So the story goes,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: am I a sucker? Was I suckered man? Because I
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: think I believed this? Yeah? Give it to us.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: So there was an older There are many varieties of banana, right,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: just like there are many kinds of tubers. Uh. The
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: gross Michelle g R O S M I c h
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: E L translates to Big Mike.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Big Michael.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Big Mike. The Big Michael was once the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: go to banana in the you know, like the days
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: when United Fruit was overthrowing Latin American democracies. You would
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: buy Big Mics if you bought a banana and a
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: grocery store. But they got wiped out by something or
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: they got devastated by something called Panama disease or Fusarium oxysporum,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and it absolutely laid waste to the at scale agriculture
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of Big Mic bananas. And so the myth goes, or
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the legend goes, that to keep people on board with bananas,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the producers created a new strain of banana, the cavendish
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and this is this part's true. This is probably the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: banana that you see at your local grocery store. It's
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: entirely made to resist that Panama disease, and it tastes different.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: A lot of old school folks will tell you it
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't taste as good. The story goes that artificial flavoring
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: had already successfully emulated the big mic banana and they's
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: taken holds right, Yeah, which is why change it up right. Also,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: flavor science is super complicated. Oh, wasn't too much of
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a sucker. So yeah, we still call it a bit
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: of a legend, a myth in an origin story. But
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: it does feel like there it does have the ring
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: of truth to it to a degree, it does.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: But the myth is this.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: If we go to an excellent BBC article by Chris
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: barrenook Yeah, the Secrets of Fake Flavors from August to
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. This journalist interviews a synthetic organic chemist named
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Derek Lowe, and Lowe says the thing is, banana can
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: be mimicked most of the way with a simple compound
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: called isoamal acetate. Many chemists know it as banana esther
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: and anyone who smells it immediately goes.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: But na maybe not like the minions, Yeah, become aminion.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: So the idea is that maybe this story of an
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: artificial impersonation of a banana that has passed, maybe it's
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: a little bit embellish because the chemist that we can
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: find as verifiable primary sources say there's not a lot
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: of evidence that the artificial banana flavor is based on
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the legendary big Mic. There are still also big mic
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: bananas that are grown, They're just not at the same
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: scale as the Cavendish.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: But it is basically still saying that this isomal ascetin
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: or whatever. When you smell it, it smelled more tasted,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: more like the older, the original.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Variety of banana.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: I guess when you smell a banana flavor, a banana scent,
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: I think it's psychological though we just associate it, even
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: though I don't know that I would say it really
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: smells like what a banana smells like. It's almost more
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: like banana pudding, like it's got a vanilla extra thing.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Layered on top of it.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to just like, how do you describe an
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: artificial flavoring that doesn't taste like the food that it's
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: meant to mimic.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: It's a real tricky thought experiment, right, yeah, yeah, And
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: let's end with this thought experiment. I like where your
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: head's at here, all right, I like where your pallet's
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: at here. Have you guys ever tried juicy fruit gum? Yeah?
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: It is juicy. I don't know that it tastes like
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a fruit.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: This idea of fruity flavoring, though, even that is all
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: wrapped up in the history of artificial flavoring. Yeah, and
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: juicy fruit is good branding because you know immediately what
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: it is, what you're signing up for. And we know
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: this was a great example of good branding and marketing genius.
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: I just want to jump in and give you know,
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: a really old family guy has some amazing jokes, and
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: there's the juicy fruit jokes.
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: Is amazing because Peter of juicefruit and his mouth, he's like, oh.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like that.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: They should have they should have aimed for zebra stripe
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: gum on that. Oh yeah, I love fred stripe gum. Hey, everyone,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: future Max here credit where credit is due. The joke
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: is actually for fruit stripe gum, not juicy fruit so
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: sorry for slandering your name juicy fruit, but I am
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: not sorry. Fruit stripe gum all right, back to the episode.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: And that also has a vaguely fruity flavor.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: But you're right, Max, the that's in, Yeah, that's I
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: think they've come a long way in making the flavor
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: of gums last but a little longer.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: But it's it's it's meant to be ephemeral.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: It's never gonna That's one thing that Willy Wonka himself
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: tried to do was to have gum that would never
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: lose its flavor.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: One thing I personally love about the concept of juicy
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Fruit is that it it's like the pursuit of happiness.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: It doesn't specify what it's promising you. It's like that
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: that seafood restaurant franchise, Legal Seafood. What the heck does
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: that mean? Legal Legal Seafood has it's got to have
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: some weird commercial where they're saying, you know, you may
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: be wondering, is it against the law for us to
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: sell you these foods ass seafood?
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: The answer is no, absolutely not. We've done our homework.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: And then wasn't there here in Atlanta for a little
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: while a place called like illegal Foods or something like that.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Ye may like crazy burgers, or it was a pop up,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: or it was really good.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Stephen Limberg, there you go, friend of the
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: past way you know. Oh yeah, I didn't hear about
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: that made a mean burger though.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: It was a good burger. They would run out kind
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: of special burger. They would have make a certain number
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: of and run out every night. That's how you know
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: it's good. That scarcity model is a big part of
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: like food culture, which I think is interesting, you know.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: And we went to our friends at the Daily Mail
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: and Mental Floss to learn a little bit more about
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: juicy fruit. What if you make a flavor so artificial
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: that it doesn't exist in nature. You have made something
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: that is not a natural fruit, but it takes to
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: fruit of some sort, and it does indeed taste juicy.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: People have been trying to crack the code on juicy
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: fruit for quite some time. One guy in two thousand
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and two, big fan of juicy fruit, emailed the parent
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: company directly and asked, like, hey, hit me to this,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: what is this? Where can I find the fruit this
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: gum is based on?
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: And they're fny fruit?
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there, pr folks said the following quote. I'm
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: afraid we can't be very specific because, for competitive reasons,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: again intrigue, we consider our juicy fruit flavoring formula to
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: be a trade secret. I can, however, tell you that
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the mixture of fruit flavors and juicy fruit is comprised
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: of predominantly lemon, orange, pineapple, and banana notes, which is
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: a great non answer.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: We haven't even gotten into the question of the ages
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: as to whether the different colors of fruit loops taste different,
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: or if it's just your brain convincing you that it
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: tastes more like lemon because it's yellow, or more like
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: a freaking blueberry because it's neon blue, or whatever like.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: There is a whole other psychological component to artificial flavoring
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: that we haven't even really touched on too much.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: But I would argue that with juicy fruit.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: The name is where the flavor comes from, almost more
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: than whatever freaking chemicals in it.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: And the juicy part, y'all, it's just your own spit.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Sorry not to be gross.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: About it, but it it encourages the production of saliva,
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: and therein lies the juicy aspect of it, you.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Know, yeah, you were the You were the superpower in
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the flavor all along.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Folks.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: We can tell you that just to sew up the
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: juicy fruit thing, when juicy fruit first hit store shelves,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: it was eighteen ninety three. They people believe that the
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: prime mover of the flavoring here is something called isoamal acetate.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: So back in this time, in eighteen ninety three, this
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: scrappy little substance, isoammal acetate was most commonly produced by
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: whiskey distilleries. And at the same time, now I'm doing
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: like a Charlie Day conspiracy board. At the same time, Illinois,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: which was home to Rigley, obviously famous for gum and stadiums, Illinois,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: produced eighteen million gallons of whiskey every year. So this
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: leads us to speculate that Rigly the company may have
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: purchased this byproduct isoammal acetate from these whisky distilleries a
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: and then like and then used it to flavor their gum.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: So juicy fruit might be booze based.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: That's fascinating.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: And then just to tie this back into the banana mystery,
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: iso ammo al acetate is in fact the chemical compound
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: that we were talking.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: About as well, that one the banana flavor.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: The idea that the myth is that this was just
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: the more convenient way to generate an approximation of banana flavor,
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: rather than they did it based on the old you know,
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: the old model banana kind of went off the market
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: because of that fungus. So isomal acetate is banana is
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: known as banana flavor, So.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: It's the same. What right?
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, absolutely correct. This is just the beginning of
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: a crazy journey. We can't wait to hear your favorite
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: artificial flavors, folks. I think we we anticipated this would
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: be a delicious rabbit hole, but maybe not to the
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: degree that we have gone into it. And thank you
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: as always for tuning in, folks. Big thanks to our
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: super producer mister Max Williams, who slid us slid into
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: our DMS on the chat and said, as a heads up,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: we are over fifty minutes now, Oh my.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: God, it's not allowed for ridiculous sysy. No, this is
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: a bonus episode within the second.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Part of the two parter. Consider it that way.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: We'd like to keep these bite sized for you, but
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: there was just too much to discuss in it Also,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: since the first one was so heavily weighted in the vanilla,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: it made sense to break it up that way.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Otherwise this would have been the longest ridiculous history of
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: all time.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: Huge thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme, Eve's.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Jeff Christopher hasiotis big, big thanks to you, well, big
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: thanks to gab Loes, yay Aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Spinach Lance, and of course the juicy fruit of our show,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland aka The Twister.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.