When you eat a vanilla yogurt or drink a peach iced tea you may not think of it as science. But there is a deliberate science behind what you are tasting. So much so that it is a multi-billion dollar industry whose goal is to trick your taste buds into eating or drinking as much as possible without you being aware of what is happening. You can click here for the transcript.
60 Minutes went behind the scenes with the largest flavor manufacturing company in the world
Givaudan may be one of the largest companies almost no one has heard of. They have over 9,000 employees in 45 countries. Their main business is to create flavors found in nature through science. For example, they will take something as simple as strawberry and mix a bunch of chemicals together to reproduce the flavor. All without using an actual strawberry. In this video you can see they pride themselves on making flavors that are so irresistible that we cannot stop consuming them.
The former head of the FDA says these flavors “hijack our brain”
David Kessler, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, has said these flavors create a “food carnival” in your mouth. The scientists in this video claim that they not only replicate flavors but “improve on it.” They actually say that their “Holy Grail” is a “flavor so good you can’t resist it” and even go on to confirm that they are attempting to create an addiction. An “addictive taste” that you want to “go back for again and again.”
This is why you can eat an entire meal from a fast food restaurant and still be hungry
I don’t know about you, but when I eat a giant plate full of veggies I feel stuffed. I don’t want to eat another bite. But when I eat some potato chips (which have a lot more calories than the plate of veggies) I really, really want to eat more. These flavors are the reason for this.
Almost every other tea company uses “Natural Flavors”
We are the ONLY loose tea company that refuses to use natural flavors. So much so that we turn down hundreds of monthly requests for certain flavors that are impossible to create without flavorings (like raspberry, peach, and any other fruit flavor). But while this sounds like we are tooting our own horn (OK, maybe we are a bit) here are the ingredient labels of other major tea companies. If tea is supposed to be healthy why take the risk of including this other junk?
Some scientists say natural flavors are safe but we will not risk it
In all fairness we love tea and have done a ton of research on this topic, but we need to say that we are not scientists. With that being said, there are some scientists that say these chemicals are safe to eat and drink. While we would love to believe that, we just don’t have 100% confidence that it is true. After all, everything is safe until further studies show they are not. That is why we won’t take the risk and use any of these chemicals.
With Golden Moon Tea you will only get real ingredients
Our Madagascar Vanilla tea uses real Bourbon vanilla beans. We then need to age the tea for 6 days to let the flavors meld. Our Tippy Earl Grey uses a pure Bergamot extract that comes directly from the Italian citrus fruit. What we do is much more difficult and time consuming, but is it also healthier and, we think, better tasting.
Try some of our 1oz packets and taste the difference
We can talk all day about this topic, but the reality is you won’t know until you try us out. We have 1oz options (which make about 12 cups of tea) for all of our teas. We recommend you order a few, open the packages, and look, feel and smell the differences in our tea. If you are ever unhappy with our teas for any reason, we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee that we stand behind.
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