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.