Diners who frequent higher end restaurants may have no problem accepting a chef's use of unusual or artificial flavoring agents when they are used to bring out unusual sensations in the food, like the menthol crystals used by Wylie Dufresne in some dishes at wd-50. The same cannot be said when artificial flavorings are used instead of readily available ingredients.

Leading French chefs Joel Robuchon and Alain Passard have denounced the growing trend among French cooks for using non-natural ingredients in their cooking, like saffron perfume, truffle essence or powdered wine sauce. The objective, unlike the use of similar things in the conceptual molecular gastronomy model, is to be able to achieve cheap, quick results. French cooks who use them use the "ingredients" secretly, for fear of being accused of cheating by others in their profession. A supplier stands by the products, saying "An increased range [of flavors] should logically be tolerated and accepted by everyone in the end," while Passard said "I don't know what to call the people who use these chemicals, but they are not cooks."

While browsing the list of Coldstone's latest summer flavors, all of which are targeted at kids, I had so wonder why it is that kids like blue ice cream because one of the new flavors is "Beary Beary Blue," described as cotton candy ice cream with gummi bears . Blue ice cream is not a new phenomenon, not by a long shot, but it's just a bit of a mystery why kids like the stuff. The real question is whether kids actually want blue ice cream, creating a demand for it, or if they eat it because it is what is marketed to them.

I tend to believe it is the latter and that kids, who are perfectly satisfied with regular ice creams at home, go crazy over wacky flavors and colors because it is labeled as a "kids" ice cream. As far as I can tell, this is the reason that I ate some of that stuff as a kid. I was drawn in by the promise of gummi bears and bits of bubble gum and, though I hated the way that they turned rock hard and inedible in the ice cream, I often ordered them anyway.

I'd rather see kids' ice creams that come in less electric colors and with additions that kids want to eat, not just with ones that they want to order. I suspect that there are a few kids who would disagree with me over the blue ice cream part, but even they might change their minds when they get down to those rock hard gummi bears.

The popular "un-cola," 7-Up, is now one hundred percent natural. Cadbury Schweppes put the beverage through a slight reformulation to remove an artificial preservative in the drink. A spokesperson for the company said that they expect sales to increase once the ad campaign publicizing the change kicks off next month, as consumers are more interested than ever in healthy products. The TV spots will show cans of 7-Up as fruits and vegetables, being picked from trees or dug from the ground, but the company will not claim that the drink has any specific health benefits.

[Image USA Today]

 

In China, eggs are sold by weight and their sale is often unregulated, particularly at local markets and in areas where the customers by large quantities at a time. Unscrupulous vendors have been known to pass off fake eggs to their unsuspecting buyers.

There are three types of faked eggs. The first are empty or cracked shells that are filled with soil. Since the eggs are sold by weight, a few soil-filled eggs in a crate will make it heavier and go unnoticed until it is too late. The second type of fake egg is the red-yolk egg. Because the redder yolks are considered to be more valuable and of higher quality, some egg-sellers feed their chickens very high quantities of food dyes, which causes them to produce red yolks without an increase in the quality of the egg or in the lifestyle of the chicken.

The most disturbing - though some might say disgusting - faked egg is the man-made egg. 

Scientists around the world are working to develop a reliable process that will grow meat in a lab from a few cells. So far, they have successfully grown meat tissue that, while it smells like meat, neither looks nor tastes very much like the real thing. The process has only been done on a small scale and the results resemble jelly. Flesh colored jelly. To get an idea of what this product currently looks like, take a look at PBS's virtual taste test, which compares the properties of lab meat to animal meat.

Scientists hope to see this jelly develop into something that looks and tastes like the cuts of meat that can be achieved from butchering a cow - without having to kill the cow and with the added benefit of being able to grow the meat at home in an incubator. Achieving this goal would nearly eliminate the need for animals in meat production and reduce the total energy and expense required to feed, raise, slaughter and transport those animals.

Meat from a non-sentient source presents an interesting problem for vegetarians, as many become vegetarians for ethical reasons alone, objecting to the practice of raising animals for slaughter. Because the initial culture cells can be taken without harming the donor animal, no animals would be harmed in this type of meat production. In-home meat growth might also limit access to truly natural meat, which may raise concerns of those who are against artificial and otherwise modified food products.

There is a short video segment available on the PBS website about cultured meat and a poll which reveals that 45% of respondents would eat the artificially grown meat. I can't honestly count myself among them.

 New studies show that preference for artificial sweeteners is based on a lack of extraneous flavors in the sweetener, not not the sweetness level of the substance. Thirteen sweeteners were rated according to how prevalent bitter, sour or metallic tastes were in them. Sugar was, not surprisingly, ranked the highest in the test. Sucralose, also known as Splenda, was the second most popular sweetener, with a "lack of noticeable sour and bitter tastes." Xylitol (a sweetener commonly used in chewing gum), aspartame (Equal and Nutra-Sweet), saccharine (Sweet N'Low) and Stevia were also ranked highly by tasters. Sugar is the standard when creating artificial sweeteners, so it makes sense that the products that tasted most like sugar would be the most popular.

What sweetener do you prefer when sugar isn't available?

Aside from the claim of "Zero calories!", which may or may not be considered a benefit, Splenda can not be considered to be "health food." The popular artificial sweetener is just that: artificial. This week, however, the FDA decided that some foods that use Splenda can claim limited health benefits because of the fact that they contain the sweetener. Following a request from the McNeil Nutritionals, which manufactures Splenda , the FDA is allowing products made with Splenda to state that they do not promote tooth decay. The claim cannot be made for the sweetener alone. Companies that wish to make use of the health claim must use the following wording: Frequent eating of foods high in sugars and starches as between-meal snacks can promote tooth decay. Sucralose, the sweetening ingredient used to sweeten this food, unlike sugars, does not promote tooth decay.

Last year, retail giant Wal-Mart pulled Splenda brand products from its shelves and began to test market a product called Altern. Altern is Wal-Mart's own brand of the artificial sweetener sucralose. According to CNN, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart revealed that the company is planning to have all of its supercenters fully stocked with Altern by the end of this month, while a spokesperson from Tate & Lyle, the company that distributes Splenda, issued a statement assuring investors that this new product would have no effect on its own sucralose division.

Despite the T&L assurance, it seems likely that Splenda would experience some drop off in direct-to-consumer sales as Wal-Mart replaces its products. Altern's release should not have an effect on the use of Splenda by food and drink manufacturers, however.

The European Union has developed a proposal to allow foods that have up to 0.9% genetically modified material to be sold with labels that confirm them as organic. The EU says that this measure, which would go into effect by 2009, is being proposed to protect organic farmers against the "risk of GM contamination." The commissioner for agriculture and rural development claimed that this move would make it easier for consumers to identify organic products, presumably by making them more similar to non-organic items.

Current guidelines stipulate that organic products cannot contain genetically modified substances "in any quantity." Environmental and organic groups are protesting the action, saying that "organic" labeled products should contain no more than 0.1% GM material, the lowest amount that can be detected both reliably and consistently. The EU should support organic farming, but not by lowering the standards of the industry.