Hello all, my question is with regards to an article in the March 2003 issue of Scientific American,
on the difference between artificial and natural flavors:
sciam.comaskexpert question.cfmOpen ↗
In particular, I'm interested in the following claim:
"So is there truly a difference between natural and artificial flavorings? Yes. Artificial
flavorings are simpler in composition and potentially safer because only safety-tested components
are utilized."
(the above quote is off the website; in the magazine itself, the question was "So is there truly
*any* substantive difference, then, between natural and artificial flavorings?"😉
It was my understanding that one further difference between substances synthesized in the lab and
those found in nature was the overall makeup, in terms of chirality. In particular, the synthetic
versions tended to have a more even distribution of left- versus right-handedness, whereas in nature
one type was typically favored over the other in the reactions and thus appeared in higher
concentrations.
Now, I don't mean to start a debate about the real or imagined dangers of synthetic chemicals in
foods, or about the significance of chirality in such a debate -- but it does seem dishonest to
simply ignore such differences, when discussing the issue. It does seem that differences in
chirality are "substantive" whatever else one might think of them, and should have at least been
mentioned in the article.
Is Scientific American due a letter of complaint to the editor, or am I simply mistaken about the
chirality differences?
Thank you,
-Bill Lewis Clark