This is why fake flavours don't taste like real fruit

A laffy taffy banana candy cannot be expected to taste like an actual banana. The reason that the artificial banana flavor tastes so strange is that the taste is actually based on the variety we used to eat. It is true that the Gros Michel banana variety tastes more like artificial. The truth is flavour manufacturers have never used the particular essence. A professor of nutritional science at Rutgers and a member of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Paul Breslin said that during the 70's when we used to buy strawberry bubblegum the flavour tasted artificial. He added that it was a weird state that we knew what we were going for but also understood that it was really missing something. He explained it is because of built-in assumptions flavour manufacturers had at the time.

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Preparation of artificial flavours

Chemists usually make strawberry flavour by first mashing up an actual strawberry and then analyse the chemicals that pass from the mash into the air. A few chemicals are enough to give a hint of the flavour. An artificial strawberry flavour does somewhat resemble a real strawberry. In some cases, one molecule gives us the flavour's essence. Isoamyl acetate is the primary component of the artificial banana scent and is immediately recognisable as a banana. The modern era of flavouring was to pay attention to the most volatile chemicals. A very small concentration of certain molecules that might not be related to the original fruit flavour ends up influencing our perception of the taste.

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Chemists nowadays come up with realistic flavours

But nowadays chemists can come up with much more realistic flavors because a lot of minor chemicals can be included. Today with much better technology, analyzation, and isolation of individual molecules have resulted in companies to develop fruit flavours that actually taste like the fruit itself. Nowadays, flovourists can make Laffy Taffy taste much more like a real banana. But the fact is Americans were probably introduced to artificial banana before the real thing. So Gros Michels happens to taste like fake banana flavour in American tastebuds.

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