"X Flavoured" is accepted terminology for not containing X. For example, sweets can be "fruit flavoured", crips (US/chips) can be "bacon flavoured", with no expectation (either cultural or legal) that they are made using real fruit or bacon.

"Flavoured with White Truffle", on the other hand, would need to use actual white truffle in some way.

I'm not sure that's really the case.

> For example, orange flavoured sweets derive their flavour from real oranges, but orange flavour sweets are synthetically flavoured.

https://www.slough.gov.uk/business/trading-standards/food-st...

How can it be meaningful and legal? Well someone decided to give it a meaning and make it a law (or regulation).

:)

In that case, keeping it kosher widens the market a bit, and the man on the street probably can't tell the difference anyway. Beside that, it's probably cheaper and easier to flavor with smoked paprika than actual bacon.

I have some truffle oil at home and always wondered how it could possibly be profitable to produce; one wouldn't want to squeeze anything out of a truffle. I guess now I have the answer, but I'm not too upset about it. It's probably as close to truffle-flavor as any grocery store in my state will actually get.

Two of my friends on the bus were vegetarian and one said, "oh yea, smoked paprika. That's used in a lot of vegetarian stuff for bacon-type flavour." They then precoded to try some bacon peanuts.

I'm sorry, no. If there weren't a cultural expectation that words have these meanings, they wouldn't feel the need to put it on the label. It's a lie.

    > Ingredients:
    > Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Truffle Extract

     > Honest ingredients:
     > Sunflower oil, Olive flavor, Truffles flavor*
     
       * which might have at one point passed near a guy
         that ate actual Truffles

In the US, I can imagine (barely) that this might be permissible, but in Europe, with DOC and AOC laws, it seems almost impossible that something could be called "truffle oil" as opposed to "truffle-flavoured oil". "Truffle Extract" and "Flavoured with White Truffle" seem to be pretty unambiguously claiming that truffles were involved in the preparation.

It's not even possible to make commercial truffle oil with real truffles, because the flavor doesn't last longer than a day or two. You could theoretically make it in your house and then use it immediately, but there wouldn't really be any point.

Actually, the reason it's not possible to make real truffle oil is because (drum roll plz) truffles aren't soluble in oil. Or rather, the compound that holds the truffle essance is not soluble in oil.

Virgin means the oil comes from a mechanical process, not a chemical one.

The purest grade extra virgin olive oil is the first cold pressed. It's neither filtered nor distilled. Refined olive oil however is filtered and also tasteless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil#Commercial_grades

I don't mean 'pure' in a good sense, just that it is a simple mixture.

The burden of proof is actually on the manufacturer to show that their "truffle oil" contains actual truffles. The question is whether or not I can believe their claim without proof--and I don't.

If it sells at a premium above a near-equivalent commodity good, my default assumption is that the claims are marketing bullshit aimed at credulous buyers.

But how important is the claim anyway? If it makes my food taste better at a fair price, I don't really care if it has any actual truffle in it. I don't even know what actual truffle tastes like--nor do I really care to learn, at their typical market prices.

But I think in the U.S., there would definitely be a problem if a food label stated "natural flavor" or "truffle extract" when it was actually "artificial flavor". The name on the front of the package doesn't matter much here, except for specific exceptions. But if the back read as anything other than "olive oil, artificial flavor" the manufacturer could get slapped on the wrist so hard.

From an older Scientific American article:

  Natural coconut flavorings, for example, depend on a 
  chemical called massoya lactone. Massoya lactone comes 
  from the bark of the Massoya tree, which grows in 
  Malaysia. ... This pure natural chemical is identical 
  to the version made in an organic chemists laboratory, 
  yet it is much more expensive than the synthetic 
  alternative.

I use them with powdered stevia, and sometimes erythritol or xylitol, to make sugar-free gelatin desserts. Also useful for such purposes are the bottles found near the baking supplies: vanilla, almond, and mint flavors.

Another cheap natural source of low-sugar flavorings can be found in the outer layer of citrus rinds. Lemon, lime, and orange zest adds a bit of [bitter] flavor that is still vaguely fruity.

You can also get powdered malic acid and citric acid in bulk, which will let you make things more tart without making them taste like vinegar.

While it is difficult to find some flavors/fragrances in the grocery store, some essential oils are marketed for cosmetic purposes, for DIY soapmakers or perfumers, but you have to be careful to buy them as food-grade and do your own research into potential toxicity if you ever intend to flavor foods with them.

Cocoa (with no sugar added) and orange peel is my favourite choice for the natural additives.

The artificial flavors are more or less the same. But it's very limited. There's no way to find the complex, more subtle mixes used in branded yogourths, say mango, papaya, kiwi, raisins and the more realistic fruit varieties.

I believe that the lack of choices is caused by the artificial bashing propaganda. People would not buy artificial flavors yet they're consuming them anyway, just because they're conveniently fooled by a few fruit bits in the mix.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VMAZQL0

For every molecule like vanillin, which is a powerful enough component of vanilla that it can often stand in for the whole, there are dozens of molecules that produce variations in flavors when combined. Most humans can't tell the difference in a blind taste test in baked goods.

Furthermore, those support molecules can become easier or harder to taste in the presence of proteins, sugars, or non-aqueous solvents.

So if, for instance, you want to make your artificially flavored vanilla ice cream taste exactly like naturally flavored, the aromatic additive cocktail you must use in addition to the vanillin will need to have a different composition from another food-chemist's concoction for vanilla-flavored sugar cookies.

But even then, you will have to decide what kind of natural vanilla you will choose to mimic, because the country of origin of cured vanilla beans can be discerned by professional tasters and with 100% accuracy by chemical analysis!

It's only moot because it is possible for people to prefer the taste of the artificial flavoring over that of the natural flavor, not because they are indistinguishable from each other.

And as I mentioned elsewhere, compounds purified from genetically engineered microbes can still be called "natural". That seems to be a clear case of pitting the letter of the law against its spirit.

Edit: I mean natural in the vernacular sense, not in regard to whatever is allowed by food labeling laws. That sense is "natural", in scare quotes. Natural coconut flavoring can only come from actual coconuts. "Natural" flavoring can come from the bark of an unrelated tree, beaver butts, engineered microbes, mushrooms, or anything else that could grow in the wild if it were released there. Artificial flavoring comes from a biochemist with a tank of ethylene and a CRC manual.

See another poster's comment here about natural coconut flavoring, which comes from the bark of a tree and not coconuts. In many, many cases, "natural" flavoring is literally the exact same compound as "artificial" flavoring, just extracted from a source in nature.

Honey can also be "laundered" by feeding it to another hive, then extracting from their combs.

There is no scanner app. If it's in stores, its origin is suspect. Buy honey directly from your local apiary. They will be able to tell you exactly where the hives were feeding before the honey was harvested, and the honey from some locations, or from single-flower honey, has a very different taste than the store-shelf-standard clover honey.

Even better, it says "The label doesn't just say parmesan, it says 100% parmesan. That's because we only use the finest ingredients, carefully crafted and aged for a sharp, distinctive taste that enhances your favourite dishes - a taste that's 100% real, 100% parmesan."

They can get away with it because "parmesan" doesn't actually mean anything outside of the EU.

Edit: As that other poster just pointed out, maybe it does mean something in the US (that label was from Canada), since someone's actually facing criminal charges for it.

>Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania-based Castle produced mainly imitation cheeses for nearly 30 years. The company, whose factory was adorned with crenelated battlements and curved archways to look like a medieval castle, had $19 million in sales in 2013.

>According to the FDA’s report on Castle, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, “no parmesan cheese was used to manufacture” the Market Pantry brand 100% grated Parmesan Cheese, sold at Target Corp. stores, and Always Save Grated Parmesan Cheese and Best Choice 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, sold by Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc., which along with its subsidiaries supplies 3,400 retail stores in 30 states. Instead, there was a mixture of Swiss, mozzarella, white cheddar and cellulose, according to the FDA.

>Castle President Michelle Myrter is scheduled to plead guilty this month to criminal charges. She faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Though I find it ironic that they responded honestly to the FOI request.

The FOIA request was a request to the FDA from Bloomberg for the FDA's investigation on Castle. It was used by Bloomberg to write the article. The Freedom of Information Act is only to request information from a government agency. To uncover the fraud the FDA physically visited Castle. They were tipped off by a disgruntled former employee. Without the tip off there is a extremely small chance they would have ever been caught.

The FDA can only respond with the information they have, so as it took the FDA actually visiting Castle (on a tip-off no less), they must have been lied to as well.

Surely, a FOI request can't realistically trigger someone jumping in a car to verify data held on file.

To a reasonable approximation, the only shredded Parmesan you can buy that is likely to contain anything like Parmesan is the stuff that's shredded on-site by places that also sell wheels/chunks of Parmesan.

OTOH, there's rarely a good reason to buy shredded parmesan even if its real; for most uses you want shredded parmesan, the size/shape of shreds you get from such a product aren't great, and its better (and, in any case, cheaper in the long run) to just get blocks of parmesan and a grater, and in typical use quantities you aren't saving much time or effort by getting pre-grated.

If you want 100% Parmesan (or even 100% cheese!) you need to buy a block.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/02/21/172589997/one...

Of course, those do nothing, as the chemicals found in truffles are, to a first approximation not soluble in oil. It's just the same chemical crap with some placebo truffle in it.

Friends don't let friends buy truffle oil.

http://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/multimedia/pdfs/q...

> An ingredient or category of ingredients which is used in small quantities for the purposes of flavouring

> Regulation 19(2)(a)(iii)

> 30. This exemption would apply whether or not pictorial representations are included on the label. Labels must comply with Schedule 8 to the Food Labelling Regulations 1996, as amended, concerning the use of the term “flavour” and should not infringe the provisions either of Section 15(1) of the Food Safety Act 1990 (concerning false or misleading indications) or the Trade Descriptions Act 1968.

Schedule 8 of The Food Labelling Regulations 1996 say:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1996/1499/contents/made

> Any description incorporating the name of a food in such a way as to imply that the food, or the part of a food, being described has the flavour of the food named in the description.

> Shall not be applied to any food unless the flavour of the food being described is derived wholly or mainly from the food named in the description, except that any description incorporating the word “chocolate” which is such as to imply that the food being described has a chocolate flavour may be applied to a food which has a chocolate flavour derived wholly or mainly from non fat cocoa solids where the purchaser would not be misled by the description.

> This shall not be taken to prevent the use of the word “flavour” preceded by the name of a food when the flavour of the food being described is not wholly or mainly from the food named in the description.

I genuinely don't know who regulates this.

See http://tna.europarchive.org/20130513091226/http://www.food.g...

Yeah, I love the percentages on the ingredients for each item which is mentioned in the name of the product. My only real complaint about EU food labeling is that I wish they were a little more consistent about allergens. Sometimes they're bolded, sometimes only mentioned in a list at the end.

I believe there are some well known flavor extracts that were chemically extracted decades ago and since have been maintained as artificial cultures in various ways (certain types of banana extracts used in candies, for instance). I don't know if truffle extract is one of them, though. I guess more accurately, I don't know if we can tell from just an ingredients list which sort of "extract" it might be, if it's a recent "fresh" extract product or some form of a longer term chemical extraction process.

(I think the US FDA, at least, does regulate what constitutes "Natural Flavorings" and so the lack of the word "natural" in packaging could be a sign, maybe.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11988...

EDIT: I see @codezero beat me to the punch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453683

What's more interesting: in its intended application (baked goods), repeated Cooks Illustrated taste tests were unable to distinguish artificial vanilla from the expensive stuff.

In many countries there are legal requirements for "Vanilla Extract" vis a vis the percentage that comes from vanilla beans, as opposed to "Vanilla Essence", which can and is typically artificial.

(I confess I bake a lot)

But vanilla plants contain a lot of other flavor/odor chemicals (like anise alcohol/methylguaiacol, p-hydroxybenzaldehyde/trimethylpirazine, p-cresol/anisole, guaiacol, piperonal) in addition to the one primarily chemical (vanillin), which may also be desirable in certain applications, such as foods or perfumes.

I would have no problem buying 750 mL of 40% grain alcohol loaded up with sugar and artificial vanillin if I'm gearing up for a giant bake sale or something, but I'd still keep the 10 mL bottle of the real stuff for finishing sauces, frostings, icings, or beverages.

Important caveat, though: vanillin derived from engineered bacteria or yeasts may be eligible to be labeled as "natural flavor"!

( https://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code... )

Commented more above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12454658

Which is what makes vanilla, I think, an interesting parallel to truffles.

Same applies to a lot of food out there. Here is a good example, olive oil: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-your-olive-oil-really-oliv...

Of course you can buy perfectly genuine, high quality, olive oil, you just need to know how to pick. The same applies to truffle oil.

The article is really saying that there are brands out there selling artificially flavored truffle oil (not a great surprise, if you ask me), and it fails to clarify a number of underlying premises it's making (or should be making). For example:

1) it is just not true that truffle is the most expensive food in the world. WHITE truffles are. Black truffles are a lot more common and a lot less expensive.

2) white truffle and black truffle are very different: not only they have a different taste, or grow in different geographies, but you eat them differently. For example you always only eat white truffle raw, while you usually cook black truffle. Truffles oil is normally made with black truffle, because the flavor of white truffle is hard to preserve in olive oil.

3) truffles are an underground mushroom. Like all mushrooms, there are many varieties (beyond the fact that they may be white or black), some are more flavorful than others. Their flavor is also affected by the type of tree they grew on (on the roots), which I think it's quite interesting.

4) black truffles grow in a handful of geographies around the world (the best ones are normally considered to be from France, Italy, or Spain), they last several days so they can be transported relatively easily

5) high quality white truffles come only from one - small -region in Italy, they last only 5-7 days from the moment they are picked and are difficult to transport (without making them spoil). The world's capital of white truffles is here (for October to December): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba,_Piedmont

People spend huge sums for white truffles, some get bought for $30k, $40k or even $50k, which are even more astounding amounts, if you consider they are for a rock-like looking mushroom that will flavor one or two meals for you and will otherwise spoil in a few days...

Bonus fun trivia: truffles have not been successfully farmed, so they have to picked in the wild. Picking methods are different in different parts of the world: In France they normally use pigs to sniff truffles in the forests. Apparently one of the essences emitted by truffles is similar to sexual feromones in pigs, so they are naturally attracted to them and instinctively dig in the ground for them (but then the truffle picker has to pull The pig away before it the truffle gets eaten). In Italy, they use dogs. It takes years to train a dog to hunt for the smell of truffle (they told me 3-5 years is common), but then dogs do not eat truffles and when they find them, they carefully dig in the ground without breaking the truffle.

that's not true, but it's hard to grow them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArqhhVnxZG4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlpQGExn4pw

Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zboif/e...

Anyway it's generally a bad idea to preserve a truffle: if you get your hands on a great truffle you want to consume it as quickly as possible. If the truffle it's not great, when then do not waste your time and money on it... ;-)

It is absolutely true. Except in rare (and usually very expensive) cases, truffle oil does not contain anything made from truffles.

Oilception.