Taste, Texture, and Deception
Do you really taste oranges in that Starburst candy? The answer is No. So, where did this orange flavor come from? It might seem disturbing that in reality the majority of today’s food contains artificial flavoring, and “natural” flavoring in almost every ingredient label that American consumers purchase. At some point, “flavoring” invaded this world along with the push for cost reduction and convenience through the disguise of processed foods, drive thru restaurants, and microwave dinners. While Americans are happily consuming a variety of cheap, fast, and tasty processed foods – flavorists have been working hard on creating chemical compounds that tantalize our taste buds and keep us coming back for more.
Within a society that offers so much processed food, it is a near impossible task for parents to teach children how to choose fresh and healthy foods. The lack of convenience that natural and unprocessed foods present is also a huge turn off when more often both parents are working full time jobs. Since there is very little information about what these artificial flavorings and “natural” flavorings consist of, and even less information about how these chemicals react in the human body when consumed, it is easy to turn a blind eye to their presence in the American diet. However, if perception is 9/10’s of any situation, and Americans perceive that Starburst’s strawberry flavoring represents the taste of fresh picked, ripe strawberries; our children are doomed to a life riddled with food secretly sickening the public and forgoing nutrition.
Taste and texture tend to go hand in hand. If the texture of a processed food feels odd in the mouth, even if the flavor is on target, a consumer might not purchase it again. Even though a company may have the taste and texture dialed to perfection, and an aggressive marketing strategy, they are not guaranteed the product’s success. It is a tough and competitive market. Because of this, an incredible amount of research has been dedicated to the evaluation and evolution of texture. According to Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, the ““mouthfeel” can be adjusted through the use of various fats, gums, starches, emulsifiers, and stabilizers”(127). If you have ever stopped to wonder why a piece of chicken from Burger King looks and tastes so different from anything that can be purchased from your grocery store’s meat counters and home cooked meals, you can stop wondering now. The processed food we consume today has been engineered, flavored, preserved, and packaged with great care for cost. Unfortunately, quality and nutrition are not of the greatest concern.
The flavor industry is an incredibly powerful group without much competition. One of the largest companies in the flavor industry is International Flavors and Fragrances Incorporated (IFF). IFF is part of the S&P 500 and boasted impressive profits for 2008. Reported revenues of 2008 reaching $2,389,372,000 and gross profits were a remarkable $970,634,000. According to their official website, IFF’s “expertise in areas such as maskers, blockers, enhancers, and sensates offers you new solutions for optimizing the taste of your product when flavor just isn’t enough.” IFF is a well rounded company, diversified by their work in the beverage, dairy, fabric care, fine fragrance, home care, ingredients, oral care, pharmaceutical, personal wash, savory, sweet, and toiletry industries.
When a company as large and wide spread as IFF is creating chemicals that find their way into the majority of processed foods Americans consume, one might expect a lot of regulations by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The disturbing fact is that the FDA has done little to protect the very group they represent, the consumers. The FDA has given consumers a definition of what artificial flavoring and natural flavoring means, but does not require IFF and companies alike to list the ingredients used as “long as all the chemicals are considered by the agency to be GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe)” (Schlosser 125). It may be possible that the amounts of chemicals present in food for “flavoring” is that of such a small amount that the FDA finds it unnecessary to test and regulate. Your initial inclination might be to agree, if the additives are at the bottom of the ingredient list, indicating they are of the smallest quantities, they should not be harmful. However, as Schlosser describes, the potency of the chemicals that provide the dominant flavor of bell pepper which “can be tasted in amounts as low as .02 parts per billion; one drop is sufficient to add flavor to five average size swimming pools” (124). If these swimming pools are rectangular in shape, and the dimensions are 16x32 feet, that would be one drop of flavoring into 10,028,747,200 drops of water. Now that is some powerful chemical! If that single drop of water can make five swimming pools taste like bell pepper, the public deserves to know exactly what is going into their food, regardless of the fact that the FDA considers these chemicals to be “generally regarded as safe”.
Consumers need to start taking responsibility for what they eat. The individual consumer is extremely powerful, and often unknowingly. If customers were to start refusing to purchase food that contains artificial and “natural” flavorings, the grocery stores and retailers alike would stop selling these products. So why are Americans taking this, sitting down in their recliners, eating a Whopper from Burger King? Ignorance is the plain and simple truth. Unfortunately, most Americans do not know about the issues Eric Schlosser raises in Fast Food Nation. Americans might start asking questions, if they knew what questions to ask, and who to ask them to. The vast majority of consumers likely have no idea that companies like IFF and the flavorists they employ even exist. Nor do the majority of people realize the extent to which their food is being engineered and modified. The flavor industry has been allowed to operate while keeping their ingredients a secret and thus deflecting criticism and questions that would surely pique the interest of American consumers.
When companies like McDonald’s are “hoping that nostalgic childhood memories of a brand will lead to a lifetime of purchases, companies now plan “cradle-to-grave” advertising strategies” (Schlosser 43) - it is no wonder Americans are more over weight than ever before. If a child grows up eating at McDonald’s and is unable to replicate the same flavors and texture in their kitchens as adults, of course they would continue to seek out fast food. Their palates have become acquainted with the engineered “mouthfeel” of fast food, creating a queer experience when an unprocessed, unflavored piece of meat is being eaten. Yet the bold and flavorful tastes and textures of food served at fast food restaurants are anything but natural. When comparing fresh, organic food with what you can find at a fast food restaurant, the fresh food seems bland and boring. This is an example of “cradle-to-grave” advertising at its finest. Once hooked, the fast food industry has a customer for life and chances are that customers will also teach their children the same terrible habits, perpetuating the problem and creating a vicious cycle.
Habits are routines of a behavior that is repeated regularly, they tend to occur subconsciously, without direct conscious awareness about them. Parents pass on habits to their children and this is another example of what makes “cradle-to-grave” advertising plans so successful. Americans can swiftly and quickly influence the flavor industry to make changes simply by not purchasing products with obscure labeling and instead, demanding insight on what chemicals are being used. Once the chemical compounds are made public, testing can be done to confirm if the FDA’s listing of GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) chemicals are truly safe at today’s average level of consumption. The only way people can make better decisions for themselves and their family is through education. When trade secrets are allowed to be kept by the very governmental organization that was created to protect us, no one is safe. Read labels and recognize your power as a consumer, one person can make a difference.
Work Cited
International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc. http://www.iff.com/internet.nsf/ProdSweet!OpenForm
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
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