Mine is this little tidbit about Khaki’s from https://www.heddels.com/2019/05/history-khaki-anything-drab/
“Tried and tested by all the major powers, khaki-dyed, lightweight cotton twills became the de facto uniform for any colonizing power. If you were going to ship your boys abroad to pillage and conquer someplace in the Southern Hemisphere, khaki was your go-to color.”
Artificial raspberry flavor is made from beaver anal glands.
Which brings us to just one of those bizarre US things, “artificial flavor” versus “natural flavor” is totally arbitrary and random. It’s based on which molecule, not what the source is, so you can have “natural flavors” that came from a massive stainless steel tank and will kill you if you touch them in pure form without the proper protective gear, or “artificial flavors” that come from squeezing beaver ass glands.Edit: Every word of this post is wrong. Literally every one. I think I read a book decades ago that told me this, maybe I remembered it wrong, but anyway according to the internet of today it’s different and I’m a big dummy.
Other way around. You can have identical molecules be classified as “artificial” or “natural” depending upon whether they were synthesized or extracted.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/svbl7/what_are_artificial_flavors_made_out_of/
Oh, you’re completely right. IDK how I thought it was different, but yes, what I said was completely wrong.
Seems unnecessary. Raspberries are plentiful and likely cheaper than beaver parts.
Yeah, it sounds like this might not actually be as common as suggested. Synthetic chemicals are usually going to be cheaper than hunting a beaver.
Makes me wonder why whale puke still gets used in cosmetics…
The synthetics are usually inferior to natural products if you’re going high-end. There’s probably thousands of individual compounds in ambergris. Similarly, I’m guessing if you go for really bougie raspberry flavouring it’s more likely to use castoreum.
I guess that I would have thought that you could isolate those individual compounds, and then reproduce them, rather than hoping that you can find a lucky ball of whale puke.
I dunno, I’m pretty sure I’m not their target audience.
In theory you could, although I’d guess it’d be an incredible amount of work, and might cost more in the end. Most attempts at replicating natural flavours and scents have historically been unconvincing, although some of the recent stuff has been incredible.
I wonder if there’s any food scientists on Lemmy.