Environment
Chemical vanilla
Chemical vanilla
Coal tar, paper mill effluent, what else
What we know as vanilla, the queen of spice, is not vanilla. It smells like it (somewhat). It can even look like it. But it is not the real thing, which
has aromatic compounds that touch your senses. Instead, what we have in our food, in our beverages, in our cosmetics and fragrances, is a
synthetic extract, which has copied the smell of vanilla and captured it in a bottle.
This smell has been harvested from, believe it or not, effluent waste of a paper mill or coal tar components used in petrochemical plants. Artificial vanillin was first synthesised in 1874 in Germany when scientists successfully replicated the chemical signature of vanillin (3-methoxy-4-hydroxy-benzaldehyde). In 1890, French chemists created vanillin from eugenol found in clove. Eugenol was the main source of vanillin till the 1920s. In the early 1900s, came the discovery of vanilla from paper mill waste.br>
In 1922, the Ontario Paper Company in Canada had no way to dispose off huge amounts of sulphite liquor laced with lignin, which was polluting nearby streams. Chemists found that this waste had something that smelled like vanilla and a counterfeit was born. Lignin, which binds together the fibres in wood, is the waste product in the process of paper making. To remove lignin from fibre, paper companies 'boil' wood with caustic soda. This waste, after the wood fibre is removed for paper making, is called black liquor or sulphide liquor. This is the worst effluent of a paper company.
The vanilla we love to eat in our food comes from this effluent waste of the paper mill. A method has been devised to extract vanillin from the lignin. In this, sulphite liquor is cooked and lignin is extracted from it. The lignin is then purified to get Lignin Vanillin also known as usp Vanillin.
Then there is the petrochemical route. The petrochemical raw material guaiacol is a component of coal tar. Coal tar is chemically processed to replicate natural vanillin. It has a stronger flavour profile than lingin vanillin or natural vanillin. But this ethyl vanillin needs to be used in minute quantities as it might impart a harsh "chemical" character to food. In recent times, chemists have used natural products such as fruits and vegetables to produce vanillin. In fact, Japanese scientists have even extracted vanillin from lignin found in cow dung.
Another non-edible type of vanillin is produced from coumorin extracted from Mexican tonka beans, which has a similar but stronger flavour than vanillin. Due to Coumarin's reported carcinogenic properties, it has been banned by the us Food and Drug Administration (fda).
Counterfeit has conquered the world in today's food industry. While the world trade in natural vanilla is at around 2,000 tonnes of cured beans or approximately 50 tonnes vanilla extract, the demand for synthetic vanillin in 2004 was more than 30,000 tonnes a year.
The consumption of the synthetic variety is growing at a rate of almost 7.5 per cent per annum with nearly 60 per cent used in the food and beverage industry. In India, about 700 tonnes of synthetic vanilla was imported in 2004, which was bought by ice cream companies and other users.
Cheap and dirty
Companies say they prefer the chemical alternative because it is cheaper. There is no doubt about this. The price ratio between the synthetic and natural product is 110 or even 115. Also, unlike that of the original compound, prices of the artificial variety do not fluctuate, throwing production out of gear. Therefore industries which make a lot of common edible products--from ice cream, biscuits, confectionery to beverages--have switched to the synthetic copy.
But they have never told us about the switch-over.
The companies in this business are the biggest of the big-- including the agri-giant Monsanto. A key supplier in India is the us multinational, International Flavours and Fragrance, which interestingly is also in the business of exporting vanilla beans. It is for this reason that vanilla farmer groups allege that this company and others are 'dumping' synthetic vanilla in India. They say that consumers are being offered the chemical alternative at throwaway prices--sometimes even free.
Vanillin is not vanilla
The problem is that the marketers of vanilla have never really been able to sell us the real compound. Aroma experts say that artificially produced vanillin cannot compete with natural vanilla in taste, even if it makes up in price. Vanillin in its natural state is the main flavouring substance of the vanilla bean. However, along with vanillin there are over 250 different aromatic substances, which give natural vanilla its well-rounded flavour.
Unlike a single metallic flavour imparted by the synthetic variety, natural vanilla releases its flavour components slowly, one after the other, giving it a subtle taste. It is this sequence of flavours, which makes vanilla the queen of spices.
Vanilla grown in different parts of the world has its distinctive flavour profiles. Madagascar's vanilla, considered commercially the best variety, is very often described as rich, smooth, rummy and full-bodied. The Tahitian variety is known to be sweet, very fragrant and perfume-like while its Mexican counterpart has a sharp, slightly pungent, woody, resinous, sweet and spicy flavour.
Tasting for true vanilla
In 2001, the popular American food magazine Cook's Illustrated, conducted a review of 18 major super market ice cream brands to rate them for their flavour and texture. Of these 18 ice creams, two had artificial vanillin. Only two of the confectioneries--Blue Bunny regular and Blue Bell French--contained imitation vanilla extract. One failed to make it out of the elimination round, and the other landed in next-to-last place in the main tasting. Clearly, natural vanilla is a key component in good ice cream.
The tasters of the magazine explained this best. "Some of the best-textured contenders fumbled when it came to flavour. Although the occasional ice cream lost points for too-potent vanilla notes (especially "artificial" or "boozy" flavours), by the end of the tasting it was clear why "vanilla" is often synonymous with "plain".
But is industry listening?
What we know as vanilla, the queen of spice, is not vanilla. It smells like it (somewhat). It can even look like it. But it is not the real thing, which
has aromatic compounds that touch your senses. Instead, what we have in our food, in our beverages, in our cosmetics and fragrances, is a
synthetic extract, which has copied the smell of vanilla and captured it in a bottle. This smell has been harvested from, believe it or not, effluent waste of a paper mill or coal tar components used in petrochemical plants. Artificial vanillin was first synthesised in 1874 in Germany when scientists successfully replicated the chemical signature of vanillin (3-methoxy-4-hydroxy-benzaldehyde). In 1890, French chemists created vanillin from eugenol found in clove. Eugenol was the main source of vanillin till the 1920s. In the early 1900s, came the discovery of vanilla from paper mill waste.br>
In 1922, the Ontario Paper Company in Canada had no way to dispose off huge amounts of sulphite liquor laced with lignin, which was polluting nearby streams. Chemists found that this waste had something that smelled like vanilla and a counterfeit was born. Lignin, which binds together the fibres in wood, is the waste product in the process of paper making. To remove lignin from fibre, paper companies 'boil' wood with caustic soda. This waste, after the wood fibre is removed for paper making, is called black liquor or sulphide liquor. This is the worst effluent of a paper company.
The vanilla we love to eat in our food comes from this effluent waste of the paper mill. A method has been devised to extract vanillin from the lignin. In this, sulphite liquor is cooked and lignin is extracted from it. The lignin is then purified to get Lignin Vanillin also known as usp Vanillin.
Then there is the petrochemical route. The petrochemical raw material guaiacol is a component of coal tar. Coal tar is chemically processed to replicate natural vanillin. It has a stronger flavour profile than lingin vanillin or natural vanillin. But this ethyl vanillin needs to be used in minute quantities as it might impart a harsh "chemical" character to food. In recent times, chemists have used natural products such as fruits and vegetables to produce vanillin. In fact, Japanese scientists have even extracted vanillin from lignin found in cow dung.
Another non-edible type of vanillin is produced from coumorin extracted from Mexican tonka beans, which has a similar but stronger flavour than vanillin. Due to Coumarin's reported carcinogenic properties, it has been banned by the us Food and Drug Administration (fda).
Counterfeit has conquered the world in today's food industry. While the world trade in natural vanilla is at around 2,000 tonnes of cured beans or approximately 50 tonnes vanilla extract, the demand for synthetic vanillin in 2004 was more than 30,000 tonnes a year.
The consumption of the synthetic variety is growing at a rate of almost 7.5 per cent per annum with nearly 60 per cent used in the food and beverage industry. In India, about 700 tonnes of synthetic vanilla was imported in 2004, which was bought by ice cream companies and other users.
Companies say they prefer the chemical alternative because it is cheaper. There is no doubt about this. The price ratio between the synthetic and natural product is 110 or even 115. Also, unlike that of the original compound, prices of the artificial variety do not fluctuate, throwing production out of gear. Therefore industries which make a lot of common edible products--from ice cream, biscuits, confectionery to beverages--have switched to the synthetic copy.
But they have never told us about the switch-over. The companies in this business are the biggest of the big-- including the agri-giant Monsanto. A key supplier in India is the us multinational, International Flavours and Fragrance, which interestingly is also in the business of exporting vanilla beans. It is for this reason that vanilla farmer groups allege that this company and others are 'dumping' synthetic vanilla in India. They say that consumers are being offered the chemical alternative at throwaway prices--sometimes even free.
The problem is that the marketers of vanilla have never really been able to sell us the real compound. Aroma experts say that artificially produced vanillin cannot compete with natural vanilla in taste, even if it makes up in price. Vanillin in its natural state is the main flavouring substance of the vanilla bean. However, along with vanillin there are over 250 different aromatic substances, which give natural vanilla its well-rounded flavour.
Unlike a single metallic flavour imparted by the synthetic variety, natural vanilla releases its flavour components slowly, one after the other, giving it a subtle taste. It is this sequence of flavours, which makes vanilla the queen of spices.
Vanilla grown in different parts of the world has its distinctive flavour profiles. Madagascar's vanilla, considered commercially the best variety, is very often described as rich, smooth, rummy and full-bodied. The Tahitian variety is known to be sweet, very fragrant and perfume-like while its Mexican counterpart has a sharp, slightly pungent, woody, resinous, sweet and spicy flavour.
In 2001, the popular American food magazine Cook's Illustrated, conducted a review of 18 major super market ice cream brands to rate them for their flavour and texture. Of these 18 ice creams, two had artificial vanillin. Only two of the confectioneries--Blue Bunny regular and Blue Bell French--contained imitation vanilla extract. One failed to make it out of the elimination round, and the other landed in next-to-last place in the main tasting. Clearly, natural vanilla is a key component in good ice cream.
The tasters of the magazine explained this best. "Some of the best-textured contenders fumbled when it came to flavour. Although the occasional ice cream lost points for too-potent vanilla notes (especially "artificial" or "boozy" flavours), by the end of the tasting it was clear why "vanilla" is often synonymous with "plain".
But is industry listening?