Food coloring and flavorings: Are you eating food or a food product?

When I was little, my mom would peel taro and cook sweet soup, and she would remind me to remember the color of taro,

"You see, taro isn't really purple. In the future, if you see a bright purple, something is wrong!"

She said this several times, and then I started to reject eating taro steamed buns and taro cakes that were too purple or had a very strong taste…

The first time I smelled coffee flavoring, taro flavoring and learned about food coloring was when my high school homeroom teacher, after attending some organization's camp and learning about artificial additives, went to a food chemical supply store on her own and brought them to class.

The teacher, at the podium, poured yellow food coloring into a cup, gave it a little stir and let us pass it around to smell. It tasted almost exactly like Fanta!

The flavorings were also passed around for everyone to "read"

Maybe my nose is more sensitive or my body is weak, but one sniff of the flavoring made me dizzy…

After graduating high school, in order to find molds for making chocolate, I found online the food chemical supply store closest to home,

Walking into the alley, walking into the shop, it was a bit dimly lit, and the flavorings were small and cute, neatly arranged jar by jar on the shelves,

Lemon, vanilla, mango, passion fruit, strawberry, malt essence, winter melon essence, black tea essence, almond essence…,

And of course the popular flavors our high school teacher had us smell, coffee and taro.

Taro flavoring is a bit like the taste of taro milk tea, not the same as a cup of freshly blended taro milk for 60.

Coffee flavoring… well, it's the unnatural smell you catch every time you come within 20 meters of a certain chain store. To avoid getting dizzy, I have to walk past quickly.

Because of the "bad habit" of smelling things and reading ingredients, when I go out I usually bring my own thermos,

A few years ago at Eslite I flipped through "Terrifying Food Additives," and I became even more willing to admit: I am just picky and fussy.

If you have the chance, take a trip to a food chemical supply store and get to know food colorings and flavorings of all kinds! Smelling the little jars in front of you, your mind will more or less conjure familiar feelings and images.

Or, study the ingredients on the bottle of Fanta, cheap canned juice or other carbonated drinks. It's quite interesting.

Addendum:

Try to eat real food and eat less processed food, or before buying a drink, spend 15 seconds looking at the ingredients!

Compared with foreign countries that are vast and sparsely populated, Taiwan counts as small, and it's easy to buy fresh food…

Fresh things are more nutritious and good for the body. If the dishes cooked at home can't be finished and are put in the fridge, after some time they can't be eaten

Similarly, processed products without additives also have very short shelf lives and easily spoil or grow mold,

I once bought noodles and the shop told me they couldn't be refrigerated and could only be kept for three days, and there was also mochi that could only be kept for two days. My first reaction was that it was troublesome, and my second reaction was peace of mind.

As for the effects of food flavorings or artificial additives on the human body, you can refer to the newly added "The Nutrients Cells Need and Man-Made Western Medicine" https://www.newsmarket.com.tw/blog/10335/

If you like my article, you're welcome to click ”encourage the author to keep writing”, thank you~

:-)