Vanilla or Petroleum

Huge thanks to our friends Iris and Bob at Solkiki for sharing this important and fascinating information about vanilla…

When we hear about delicious vanilla, we think of the vanilla bean.

We use 2 different types of vanilla: Madagascan/Bourbon vanilla and Tahitian vanilla. Madagascan vanilla or the more used 'Bourbon vanilla' (named after the former name of Réunion, Île Bourbon) is the most well known of all vanillas. Bourbon has the sweetest and creamiest profile of all vanilla with an almost buttery taste. Tahitian vanilla has a more gentle taste, but contains more flowery and fruity notes and overall has a more sultry profile, making this vanilla popular in the perfume industry.

Anyway, it's a glorious spice with a complex, natural profile that makes you want to taste it again and again. People usually respond very positively to a taste of real vanilla, no synthetics nor extracts.

Our vanilla bars are among the best ever assessed worldwide.

But most of the 'vanilla' consumed these days is artificial; it’s the flavour molecule, called vanillin, produced through either “natural” or “artificial” methods.

This so-called “natural” method involves either bacteria or yeast.

The “artificial” method uses byproducts of the petroleum making process.

Over 85% of the World's vanillin is artificial.

Not just a substitute, but a synthesized copy of a fake.

Yes... a review of chocolate makes for unpleasant reading: today, the majority of vanilla substitute, vanillin, is sythesized in a laboratory.

Many brands you know of use a synthetic compound that imitates vanillin made from petrochemical byproducts. It's very cheap to make, masks cheap, low-quality ingredients and most of the world's vanilla-substitute flavour, vanillin, is itself created derived from Guaiacol (Gwy-a-col) in a lab.

Guaiacol is a precursor to various flavorants, such as eugenol. Because consumers tend to prefer the lesser of two evils: natural vanillin to synthetic vanillin, methods such as microbial fermentation have been adopted. The route entails the condensation reaction of glyoxylic acid with guaiacol to give mandelic acid, which is oxidized to produce phenylglyoxylic acid. This acid undergoes a decarboxylation to afford vanillin. The crude vanillin product can then be purified with vacuum distillation and recrystallization. It's a complicated, artificial way to create a flavour close-ish to vanilla and much cheaper to use.

At Solkiki, we prefer to use the actual vanilla pod from a plant, which is natural and delicious: the type of ingredient we are designed to consume.

By the way... guaiacol is also used medicinally as an expectorant, antiseptic, and local anesthetic, but.... even at therapeutic doses, guaiacol can cause a range of side effects.

Common side effects include gastrointestinal discomfort and rarer allergic reactions. Guaiacol has also been associated with dizziness, headache, or a feeling of light-headedness..

In addition, long-term use of guaiacol may lead to some more serious side effects, including cyanosis (bluish coloring of the skin), fatigue, shortness of breath, and rapid heart rate.

Furthermore, guaiacol may have hepatotoxic effects, meaning it can cause liver damage.

Topical application of guaiacol as an antiseptic can also cause local side effects, usually mild but not always.

Industrial chocolate does not contain even therapeutic doses of guaiacol, but all the food and snacks you consume here-and-there add up. Strange chemicals stored away in the body, unsure of how to process. You often don't know where all the ingredients in your food come and what it does to your health in the long run.

Beautiful bars with real vanilla

At Chocolate Squirrel, we stock a selection of bars made with Certified Organic Madagascan Vanilla, including…

Karuna:

Vanilla White 39%, Special Hybrid, Cocoa Butter: Peru

Sisters A:

Strawberry Vanilla 50%, Peru

Peru 50%, San Martin

Bee Pollen 50%, Columbia

Aruntam:

White Manabi 48%, Cocoa Butter: Ecuador

Bianco Lemone 48%, Cocoa Butter: Ecuador (Biancomangiare)

Mike & Becky:

Rooibos Vanilla 63%, Principe