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The Economics of Everyday Things

114. Natural and Artificial Flavors

The Economics of Everyday Things

Freakonomics Network

Business

4.81.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How do flavorists capture the essence of a fruit and put it in a can of sparkling water, or a tub of yogurt? Zachary Crockett takes a bite.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

When most of us take a trip to the grocery store, we see fruits, vegetables, and spices. Terry

0:09.0

Measley sees chemical compounds. Clove is eugenol. Basel is methylcavacal, tarragon is estrogol.

0:20.0

Garlics are sulfides called trimethyl sulfide.

0:22.8

Ceyl, the leaf, that's transdu decennial and undescental, which is 11 carbons long and unsaturated aldehyde.

0:31.2

But the seed is coriander, and that's mostly linolul.

0:35.6

Do you just have like an encyclopedic knowledge of all these in your head?

0:38.7

Everybody has the capacity for this.

0:41.2

We have the sensitivity, and we have the ability to differentiate, but what we don't have

0:46.9

is the language, and that's really what a flavorist does is build that language.

0:51.3

Miesley sees food this way as a matter of habit.

0:55.5

It's his job.

1:00.7

I'm a master flavorist with a company called Sensient. We make natural flavors,

1:05.7

natural colors, and numerous other ingredients. I want to know the physiology of the plant,

1:10.9

of the fruits, of the meats, of the chemistry of what happens as it cooks, all that sort of thing.

1:17.1

You've probably seen the terms natural flavors or artificial flavors on the labels of your groceries. These flavors are products created in laboratories by people like

1:22.9

Measley, and they're a multi-billion dollar industry. By one measure, nearly 40% of all packaged foods sold in the U.S.,

1:32.0

from sparkling waters to salad dressings, contains some kind of flavoring.

1:37.4

What are these flavors exactly?

1:39.8

How are they made?

1:41.2

And why do we use so many of them in the first place?

1:44.9

The strawberry you have in your ice cream might not be the same strawberry you want in your yogurt.

1:52.8

This industry is built on custom solutions.

...

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