Well dang, thanks for busting that myth! I've definitely misinformed some people because I thought it was made to mimic the gros michel. Thanks to you all now I know better. To answer the pinned question, I was very surprised the first time I had concord grapes by how close artificial grape flavoring came to them. I was accustomed to red or green grapes so I never understood how the artificial flavor was meant to resemble grapes until then.
WOAH now I have to try concord grapes! I love that flavor but always thought it was like watermelon jolly ranchers- yummy, but not a good mimic of the fruit itself. This makes me so happy to find out 😭
I just wanted to say that I think the channel has gone in a good direction since its inception. The first few videos here had good animation but were very flat, simplified, and non-critical: as a chemist I was disappointed because the ACS logo had raised my expectations. It seemed like the kind of channel that would blindly propagate myths like the Gros Michelle/isoamyl acetate one with glitzy pictures and upbeat voiceover. I kept my subscription but stopped watching. This one much better represents what science is about: having a question and a hypothesis, talking to experts, collaborating on an experiment, and changing your mind when faced with the facts. Good job - keep at it!
Hey thank you so much for the kind words--we really appreciate them and are glad you're digging the direction the channel is going in (and checked back in to watch!).
Hmm maybe most western people have never tried fresh ripe bananas from South East Asia where bananas is originated from. I was in Australia, tried the dole bananas and it tastes so mild, nothing like the bananas in my home country Malaysia
Thanks for the interesting analysis Samantha on banana taste. We'd live to see more mass spectrometry utilized in future videos! Looking forward to the next video. - the ChemTalk team
I was pretty excited about this video, especially since isoamyl-acetate is also a common flavour compound in alcoholic beverages. I became a bit said when I saw that only a small portion of the video contained the actual GC-MS analisys, but I was so glad when I found the results in the description :) The document is very descriptive, I just wish it contained all the cromatograms, and the integrated values to figure out the robustness of the measurement. It's interesting to see though that the results showed correlation between samples 2-9 and 1-10, there seems so be some inconsistensy there, since those are from different species, right? Was there any other variable other than the amount of banana weighed? Also it seems that the retention time of isoamyl-acetate varies a bit, that isn't typical of GC-MS. Love the work you guys do, keep it up :)
Is that flavor historian also somehow a synth historian. I saw a EMS Synthi and a Prophet behind her. Those are incredible synths. Wow! She is so freaking cool!
This is awesome. I've wondered this for years since I love bananas, presumably Cavendish, and I can't stand fake banana. Thanks! And you're an excellent host.
Little sweetener is appreciable for the palate. On the other hand, the excess of sweetener makes the tongue bitter. It would be a good topic to address.
i always thought the banana flavor was based off a extinct banana species (also weird how people think both banana and grape artificial flavors dont taste like real bananas and grapes, and with the banana they would be right but with grape it's the concord grape, it's real)
I just googled few seconds ago and found out that Gros Michel is something we call as Pisang Ambon in Indonesia (This video answers my curiosity why banana flavored syrup in my country is labeled as "Pisang Ambon Flavor" (which is not even rare in my country) but some Westerners call it as "extinct banana".) Thank you. Fun Fact : Banana flavored syrup in Indonesia is not even yellow in color, it's red.
That's pretty cool. Anyway... In order to actually characterize the compounds responsible of the flavour difference, a good approach could be using sll the former GC-MS peaks (or even RMN analysis) and later apply Principal Component analysis over the main peaks of each sample.
Which of the many varieties you tried did you like the best? Or a couple of favorites? In banana country we like the ‘Lady Fingers’ or Bacuba variety. Don’t know if there’s any acetate in them.
I would also think ripeness plays a large role in the iaoamyl acetate concentration, but I do not know if the younger banana or older banana would yield higher levels. I am rusty on my organic redox cycles and if esters are a precursor, intermediate, or product.. Is there a better solvent than everclear? Are there faster extraction methods? Is there another part of the banana plant with higher concentration of isoamyl acetate? So much science to be done...
Agreed--so many variables and so much science to still be done! There are definitely other (purer) solvents, but they’re tough to get shipped to your home in the middle of a pandemic. 95% ethanol was a convenient,* safe option that still yielded results! If we were to do this again, we’d try to get our hands on a 100% pure solvent! *One of the animators had half a gallon of Everclear lying around. Which, come to think of it, might explain why they never sent us video of them eating bananas.
Great video, very entertaining. However, as a chromatographist myself I have to say that the quality of the chromatogram was very bad. The peaks showed a lot of tailing and the baseline was a disaster. I don't know how they were able to make an accurate quantification with that.
Yes! Ripeness absolutely plays a role in taste/smell. There are researchers out there trying to understand how ripeness affects what compounds are produced [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6222428/]. Sam made sure all of the bananas were ripe before mashing them up and soaking them in ethanol, but “ripeness” was determined by eye and could have definitely affected the amount of isoamyl acetate detected.
What about, the older the banana the more pronounced the sweet banana flavour? Also, where did the cherry doctor pepper flavour come from? That thing is in no way remotely like a real cherry.
I feel like a cooked plantain has more nuances closer to the flavor of banana laffy. Maybe the breakdown of the sugars contributes more to the flavor than we think. (Also referencing ripeness.)
Orange is probably the closest flavour to the real thing but that's just ascorbic acid, vit C tablets taste like orange, and I live in the UK we don't get much that is artificially flavoured anymore. (Although a lot of "natural" flavours are the same compounds just with impurities due to being extracted from the thing, like cyanide in almond flavouring). The aftertaste you're getting is probably just fructose tbh. There's more of it in the grow michele and the taffy is full of HFCS.
Wait, can you go into the logistics a bit? Did you ask your co-workers/production team if you could mail them a banana to eat? There's just something about this scenario in its raw form that is hilarious to me LOL
I have always wondered, why I really like the taste of bananas, but I rather dislike banana flavored food. So it seems, that banana I usually eat do not contain isoamyl acetate :D
That is so odd, you would think that some people would think that it tastes like the taffy version. Both the cavendish and michelle have that ester. Maybe your expectation played a part in the tasting?
In English it's a "Big Mike". But yeah monoculture has wiped out a lot of fruits over the years since it creates an environment that certain pests can take over.
That's a broken question on a lot of fronts, first how would you frame "side effects" you can get fat from eating fruit does that make obesity a side effect of fruit? So with side effects you have to frame what constitute a "side" effect Following that a lot of "artificial" flavors are the same chemical as are in the food themselves, so you have to delineate whether it matters where the chemical comes from. Also as in the fruit example dosage matters, also it matters who's/what's eating it. aspartame is really bad for mice due to their highly acidic?/protein rich urine that reacts with the sweetener. Similarly it's not like humans are immune to the toxins in chocolate, potatoes, and many other foods we just aren't SUBSTANTIALY bothered by them.
@@ACSReactions I'm in Australia and we produce the most yummy bananas in the world. ;) I think the sugar content in lollies doesn't help in the tongue picking out flavours. Like a distraction.
If you live in a country the exports bananas, you have "better access" to them. Where I live, I only get them ripen, ripen at producer, not in a boat in route to the destination market. I think that makes a difference.
![NLE Choppa - Or What ft. 41 (Orchestra Mix) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/biOFASEgSOM/mqdefault.jpg)
Is there an artificial flavoring out there that you think is JUST like the food it’s imitating? We’re curious.
All of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans are spot on
nice present
The cucumber in cucumber lime Gatorade
I wish there was a real juicy fruit fruit.
Grape Flavor
Appropriate that furfuryl alcohol tastes like burning, since it's hypergolic with fuming nitric acid.
Flavor historian is a career?! That is so incredibly cool!!
We know, right!!
Everything is a career if you aren't picky on getting a paycheck
@@fischX 😥
I think other acetates have a similar odor. For instance when we used to work with isobutyl acetate, the lab had that banana odor.
Well dang, thanks for busting that myth! I've definitely misinformed some people because I thought it was made to mimic the gros michel. Thanks to you all now I know better.
To answer the pinned question, I was very surprised the first time I had concord grapes by how close artificial grape flavoring came to them. I was accustomed to red or green grapes so I never understood how the artificial flavor was meant to resemble grapes until then.
WOAH now I have to try concord grapes! I love that flavor but always thought it was like watermelon jolly ranchers- yummy, but not a good mimic of the fruit itself. This makes me so happy to find out 😭
That's just bananas... 🍌🍌🍌🍌 I remember synthesizing banana oil in general chemistry.
Niiiice.
A ton of fruit flavored candies make sense once you try fruits in Japan. Grapes, apples, etc. The flavor and sweetness levels are on another level
I just wanted to say that I think the channel has gone in a good direction since its inception.
The first few videos here had good animation but were very flat, simplified, and non-critical: as a chemist I was disappointed because the ACS logo had raised my expectations. It seemed like the kind of channel that would blindly propagate myths like the Gros Michelle/isoamyl acetate one with glitzy pictures and upbeat voiceover. I kept my subscription but stopped watching.
This one much better represents what science is about: having a question and a hypothesis, talking to experts, collaborating on an experiment, and changing your mind when faced with the facts.
Good job - keep at it!
Hey thank you so much for the kind words--we really appreciate them and are glad you're digging the direction the channel is going in (and checked back in to watch!).
I've never tasted durian flavor anything close to durian.
You could change the world if you could imitate the flavor without the aroma!
There's several strains of durians. I'd say some of them taste close
Buttered popcorn jelly beans tastes amazing.
Yesssssssss
The banana candy probably has a higher concentration of banana flavor than an actual banana.
You nailed it.
Hmm maybe most western people have never tried fresh ripe bananas from South East Asia where bananas is originated from. I was in Australia, tried the dole bananas and it tastes so mild, nothing like the bananas in my home country Malaysia
Why eat a banana candy when can you have a real sweet banana full of nutrients? I just never get the appeal of banana flavour stuff, taste odd
@@liyenong2017 bananas have a very short shelf life.
Thanks for the interesting analysis Samantha on banana taste. We'd live to see more mass spectrometry utilized in future videos! Looking forward to the next video. - the ChemTalk team
Glad you enjoyed it! We had a lot of fun making this video and would love to do more mass spec!
I'd say the same thing about Watermelon flavoring. Love the fruit, can't stand when it's a flavor of candy or soda. Just like the Banana.
Next time you eat watermelon, look for hints of cucumber, especially as you near the rind.
The only artificial watermelon flavor I like is from the jolly rancher, but even then I don’t think of it as watermelon 😅
I just realized that it's rare for processed foods with banana flavor
I was pretty excited about this video, especially since isoamyl-acetate is also a common flavour compound in alcoholic beverages. I became a bit said when I saw that only a small portion of the video contained the actual GC-MS analisys, but I was so glad when I found the results in the description :) The document is very descriptive, I just wish it contained all the cromatograms, and the integrated values to figure out the robustness of the measurement.
It's interesting to see though that the results showed correlation between samples 2-9 and 1-10, there seems so be some inconsistensy there, since those are from different species, right? Was there any other variable other than the amount of banana weighed?
Also it seems that the retention time of isoamyl-acetate varies a bit, that isn't typical of GC-MS.
Love the work you guys do, keep it up :)
Damn she's fine and has a PhD
Is that flavor historian also somehow a synth historian. I saw a EMS Synthi and a Prophet behind her. Those are incredible synths. Wow! She is so freaking cool!
She's way too cool for us.
I love this channel, thank you for all the work your team puts in. It’s greatly enjoyed & appreciated ❤️
This is awesome. I've wondered this for years since I love bananas, presumably Cavendish, and I can't stand fake banana. Thanks! And you're an excellent host.
Bananas are my favorite Berry.
So much sass this episode!
...the quarantine may have gotten to us...
Little sweetener is appreciable for the palate. On the other hand, the excess of sweetener makes the tongue bitter. It would be a good topic to address.
Next video: Why Does Team Hostility Smell Like Banana Vodka XD
i always thought the banana flavor was based off a extinct banana species
(also weird how people think both banana and grape artificial flavors dont taste like real bananas and grapes, and with the banana they would be right but with grape it's the concord grape, it's real)
I just googled few seconds ago and found out that Gros Michel is something we call as Pisang Ambon in Indonesia (This video answers my curiosity why banana flavored syrup in my country is labeled as "Pisang Ambon Flavor" (which is not even rare in my country) but some Westerners call it as "extinct banana".) Thank you.
Fun Fact : Banana flavored syrup in Indonesia is not even yellow in color, it's red.
literally every one of these is so much fun to watch. sam's the best!!!!
That's pretty cool.
Anyway... In order to actually characterize the compounds responsible of the flavour difference, a good approach could be using sll the former GC-MS peaks (or even RMN analysis) and later apply Principal Component analysis over the main peaks of each sample.
can I get a PhD degree for that?
@@Ramoonus Even funnier phD thesis has been defended hahaha
Which of the many varieties you tried did you like the best? Or a couple of favorites? In banana country we like the ‘Lady Fingers’ or Bacuba variety. Don’t know if there’s any acetate in them.
I would also think ripeness plays a large role in the iaoamyl acetate concentration, but I do not know if the younger banana or older banana would yield higher levels. I am rusty on my organic redox cycles and if esters are a precursor, intermediate, or product.. Is there a better solvent than everclear? Are there faster extraction methods? Is there another part of the banana plant with higher concentration of isoamyl acetate? So much science to be done...
Agreed--so many variables and so much science to still be done! There are definitely other (purer) solvents, but they’re tough to get shipped to your home in the middle of a pandemic. 95% ethanol was a convenient,* safe option that still yielded results! If we were to do this again, we’d try to get our hands on a 100% pure solvent!
*One of the animators had half a gallon of Everclear lying around. Which, come to think of it, might explain why they never sent us video of them eating bananas.
I still wish real bananas tasted like banana Laffy taffy!!!
Same here, would be cool if someone came up with a cultivar that has an even higher content of isoamyl acetate to see how close it could get.
This question never crossed my mind🤔, why though?
Why..... not?
Life expectancy back then was 100+ years lol
Great video, very entertaining. However, as a chromatographist myself I have to say that the quality of the chromatogram was very bad. The peaks showed a lot of tailing and the baseline was a disaster. I don't know how they were able to make an accurate quantification with that.
Also wondering how much ripeness played a role in the taste? I mean doesn't a banana undergo some huge changes as it ripens?
Sure they do, the darker the better, no kidding.
Yes! Ripeness absolutely plays a role in taste/smell. There are researchers out there trying to understand how ripeness affects what compounds are produced [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6222428/]. Sam made sure all of the bananas were ripe before mashing them up and soaking them in ethanol, but “ripeness” was determined by eye and could have definitely affected the amount of isoamyl acetate detected.
What about, the older the banana the more pronounced the sweet banana flavour? Also, where did the cherry doctor pepper flavour come from? That thing is in no way remotely like a real cherry.
Life expectancy 20. So who really gives a ( Gets cut off )
Such a random topic...i like how you went deep with it :D
It also makes bees go crazy.
Is it unsurprising to anyone else that there was artificial banana flavour before the were bananas in the USA?
I feel like a cooked plantain has more nuances closer to the flavor of banana laffy. Maybe the breakdown of the sugars contributes more to the flavor than we think. (Also referencing ripeness.)
Orange is probably the closest flavour to the real thing but that's just ascorbic acid, vit C tablets taste like orange, and I live in the UK we don't get much that is artificially flavoured anymore. (Although a lot of "natural" flavours are the same compounds just with impurities due to being extracted from the thing, like cyanide in almond flavouring).
The aftertaste you're getting is probably just fructose tbh. There's more of it in the grow michele and the taffy is full of HFCS.
Wait, can you go into the logistics a bit? Did you ask your co-workers/production team if you could mail them a banana to eat? There's just something about this scenario in its raw form that is hilarious to me LOL
I mean-basically. Most of us live pretty close to each other so bananas were left on the front porch for the team to pick up and try.
You blew out my best fun fact 😭 But... thanks anyway. Learned something new
I have always wondered, why I really like the taste of bananas, but I rather dislike banana flavored food. So it seems, that banana I usually eat do not contain isoamyl acetate :D
I want to know what's up with that Root beer candy flavor.. The sibling of banana candy flavor.
I wanna Thank YT for recommending me this channel and yeah also you for making such Videos ...😊
I'm wanted to know how to extract bananas to use as flavor 😩 please help me 😅
Nadia Berenstien the flavor historians studio is dope!!
That is so odd, you would think that some people would think that it tastes like the taffy version. Both the cavendish and michelle have that ester. Maybe your expectation played a part in the tasting?
Next, plz do Apple flavour
Or watermelon
Ah but what about blue raspberry flavor? Completely made up but it tastes great!
Grow, Gros Michel! Grow!
Growth is not the issue - the gross root-fungus is ;)
In English it's a "Big Mike". But yeah monoculture has wiped out a lot of fruits over the years since it creates an environment that certain pests can take over.
The banana variety that banana candy flavor is based on was wiped out due to a fungus. That’s what bananas don’t taste like banana candy
Er, did you leave this comment before watching the video?
Are there any side effects of artificial flavours
That's a broken question on a lot of fronts,
first how would you frame "side effects" you can get fat from eating fruit does that make obesity a side effect of fruit? So with side effects you have to frame what constitute a "side" effect
Following that a lot of "artificial" flavors are the same chemical as are in the food themselves, so you have to delineate whether it matters where the chemical comes from.
Also as in the fruit example dosage matters, also it matters who's/what's eating it. aspartame is really bad for mice due to their highly acidic?/protein rich urine that reacts with the sweetener. Similarly it's not like humans are immune to the toxins in chocolate, potatoes, and many other foods we just aren't SUBSTANTIALY bothered by them.
Ha! You don't have any animators. Or they're all bananas. 🍌
I have to try that banana!
Intresting 🤔
I've eaten chalk that tastes better than Banana Candy
Yeah the candy is kind of a love it or hate it thing
what kinda chalk you got??
@@irun_mon sidewalk glitter
This is great, but laffy taffy is gross across the board (every flavor), banana runtz are the gold standard for banana candy
You're in North America that's why
It is widely known that bananas taste different in Europe.
@@ACSReactions I'm in Australia and we produce the most yummy bananas in the world. ;) I think the sugar content in lollies doesn't help in the tongue picking out flavours. Like a distraction.
If you live in a country the exports bananas, you have "better access" to them. Where I live, I only get them ripen, ripen at producer, not in a boat in route to the destination market. I think that makes a difference.
@@octapc We'll have to add a line in our budget to fly the team to Australia to try their bananas.
These are the best!!!!!!!!!
She tastes alot of bananas 😂😍
“Samantha Jones, PhD” is quite vague. No offense intended. It just may put people off
You put people off
i like it when women eat bananas
it makes me feel comfy 😊
I hope you enjoy being alone as well.
Grow up .