Natural vs Artificial flavours
I’ve always been under the impression that there was an important distinction between the “natural flavours” and “artificial flavours” listed on food ingredients. After having read this food science article (adapted from Fast Food Nation)
Natural flavors and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods. Amyl acetate, for example, provides the dominant note of banana flavor. When it is distilled from bananas with a solvent, amyl acetate is a natural flavor. When it is produced by mixing vinegar with amyl alcohol and adding sulfuric acid as a catalyst, amyl acetate is an artificial flavor. Either way it smells and tastes the same.
Natural flavours no healthier than artificial
I had for some reason assumed that natural flavours were probably not quite as bad for you as artificial flavours, however this is not necessarily the case:
A natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor — benzaldehyde — is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived by mixing oil of clove and amyl acetate does not contain any cyanide. Nevertheless, it is legally considered an artificial flavor and sells at a much lower price. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature.
So, basically “natural flavours” and “artificial flavours” are the same thing, and are best avoided if possible.
Amyl Acetate is the same, the question is what else comes along with it. Fruits have a large number of ingredients whose effects Chemistry and Medicine has a very poor understanding of.
We have evolved to co-exist with a small subset of what is edible on this planet. This evolutionary symbiosis makes me believe that the natural edible thing (say, fruit) is on the average a good idea.
I believe artificial flavors are often looked down upon because it is uneconomical for products to build complex flavors artificially. I.e. things using artificial flavors to produce a banana taste do not taste exactly like a banana mainly because they just use one or a few of the key esters to produce this flavor, whereas there are well over 30 different esters in a banana that produce the flavor. I don’t know the common modes of synthesizing artificial flavors today but I would suspect they could produce racemic mixtures of the desired chemicals where only a percentage of the output is the desired chemical and the rest is its mirror image.