How is fruit flavor “essence” captured? If soda water is unsweetened and zero-calorie, how is the flavor added?
In: Chemistry
Essence is created by heating the fruits and their skins/rinds, hot enough that it produces vapor. This vapor contains microscopic oil particles that have the flavor of the fruit, so when you collect that vapor, you’re collecting some flavor. It’s like fruit flavored steam. Then you can add that collected liquid to all kinds of foods and drinks to add a subtle fruit flavor without adding actual chunks of fruit.
For the first question :
You have 2 ways of getting fruit flavor.
Either you use the fruit itself, and you use a liquid (could be dichloromethane for instance) that doesn’t mix with water, and that “captures” the flavor molecules but not the rest of the fruit. Then you remove that liquid and the fruit particles, and you get a mix of all the flavor molecules of the fruit, without the rest. That’s called extraction.
What is often done is that chemists identify the main molecule responsible for flavor, and synthesize it. Sometimes multiple different molecules are synthesized to make a flavor that is closer to the real fruit (there can be hundreds of kinds flavor molecules in a fruit, so they pick the most important ones).
For the second question :
Flavored soda water can be 0 calories because they only add the flavor molecules of the fruit (often the artificial flavor molecules). The calories in sweetened soda comes from sugar, because your body uses sugar as a source of énergie (calories measure the amount of energy you get from food). The main thing is : your body doesn’t use flavor molecules for energy. So by drinking water with flavor, you get no energy, so no calories. In other drinks, the sugar is added for a better taste, but the flavor always come from other molecules.
If you want the sweet taste without the calories, you need to add an artificial sweetener : that’s a molecule that tastes like sugar, but that your body doesn’t use for energy. You can also use a sweetener that is used for energy, but doesn’t give enough energy for it to really affect the calorie count of the drink.
If you have any follow up questions or if I answered badly, feel free to ask me again
Edit : also look at u/peacheserratica ‘s answer above for the first question : you can get the flavor of the molecule without using a liquid for extraction by recolting the vapor that comes from heated fruits. You will get a different mix of molecules from the other methods I gave
In addition to what the top comment said, if a food has fewer than 5 calories per serving, it can be labeled as 0 calories. I’m guessing many of those flavored waters do have trace calories per serving from the flavor added.
Using two types of chemicals, esters and artificial sweeteners. Esters are the Chemical ingredients that give fruits, vegetables, plants… their smell and flavor. Esters have no calories. And artificial sweeteners like aspartame and many others have close to zero calories.
Essence is captured by the Scientist using a machine he developed primarily for the Gelfling. But it can be repurposed for strawberries.
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