The Trouble with Truffles (oil that is...)

I laugh how they highlight “premium quality” - only the best fake stuff!

I guess, there is inferior quality fake stuff :smiling_imp:

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Boogers was meant as a term of endearment.

Kinda like I call Not JR Notters.

Or ole Lambshanks.

The point is that large majority of the natural and synthetic vanillin is used by different industries, e.g. food industry, pharma/bio, fragrance etc and never reaches a supermarket (most likely the majority of these industries use artifically vanillin for cost and purity reasons). Based on this the ratio of “natural” vs “artifical” vanilin which reaches the end user in a supermarket (as a solution to for use as an ingredient) is very unlikely 10/90 but more like something 50/50

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Please provide proof for your position.

Walk into any Bed bath and beyond, bath and body works, white barn candle, or strip club and it is clear that not all vanilla chemicals are going into food.

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Need a citation to something more empirical than, “walk into any bed bath and beyond…”

What? That is some serious primary research right there - and I said it on the Internet … I think that is pretty rock solid. Would it be better if I snuck it into a wiki page? :smiley:

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I can demand 10 tons of vanilla, but if the manufacturers can only produce 2 tons, then the consumption and sales will never and can never be 10 tons. At the most, it will be 2 tons, but could be less if all of it doesn’t sell (poor quality, too expensive, etc.)

“The demand for vanilla flavoring has long exceeded the supply of vanilla beans. As of 2001, the annual demand for vanillin was 12,000 tons, but only 1,800 tons of natural vanillin were produced.[29] The remainder was produced by chemical synthesis.

Dignum, Mark J. W.; Josef Kerlera; Rob Verpoorte (2001). “Vanilla Production: Technological, Chemical, and Biosynthetic Aspects”. Food Reviews International. 17 (2): 119–120. doi:10.1081/FRI-100000269. Retrieved 2006-09-09.

I can provide as much proof as you for your 90% in supermarkets call - your and mine numbers are just assumption not based on actual numbers. Even your wiki link says that at least 13% of the use is for pharmaceutical etc intermediates/products which is definitely not using “real” vanilin as it contains a number of unknown byproducts not suitable for production of for example APIs

Yeah, well I was interested if you actually had the figure for retail market share somewhere.

So to get back to the actual topic, I find imitation flavoring oils of all types whether truffle, vanilla, almond or something else just nasty.

And I am assuming from your level of interest that everyone else around here agrees.

So far no one has provided this.

I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know. Thanks for the information

Not for me. I do buy actual truffle oil in Houston via a person who imports it from a friend’s farm in France. The synthetic truffle flavor tastes so chemically to me and leaves a strong and unpleasant aftertaste. I ordered black truffled gnocchi recently in London at a restaurant I otherwise love and was horrified at the chemical taste. Half a gnocchi was all I ate.

For those in Houston interested:

Houston Truffle FB Page

And some apparently contain beaver extractions.

Beaver Butts

I stick with Mexican Vanilla, which is real and super tasty.

So if the bottle doesn’t say imitation does it mean it’s the real deal?

You have to parse the label very skeptically. Price is a clue, but even the imitation ones can be spendy. Watch out for statements like, “with the flavor of truffles”, which is NOT the same as “with truffles”. Even with some that say “with real truffles”, the fine print may reveal that there’s also imitation flavoring, in which case you can expect that there’s next to no actual truffle.

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Usually if it’s the real deal, they’ll sprinkle a few shavings in so you can see them resting on the bottom.