301365 Thu Jan 19 20:00:58 -0800 2006 30 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1679992 OK, so has anyone tried these? Time Magazine named it the best invention of 2005. So for about six bucks a can you get this spray that you can use to flavor low calorie foods to make them taste ... well ... good. Take that yogurt, spray it with cheesecake spray - voila. I guess you could also spritz some blueberry on it for blueberry cheesecake. Or ... banana split. Add some extra chocolate fudge spray and marshmallow spray. Spritz the Mochaccino in your coffee and you have a zero calorie drink. A little Ranch spray on that salad? Some carmelized onions sprayed on those sauteed mushrooms? Some root beer float spray in that sparkling water? Other flavors include: Parmesan Cheese, Butter, Tomato Basil, Hot and Sour, Ice Blue Salt, Memphis BBQ, Pepper City, Teriyaki, Cookies & Cream, Raspberry Bubblegum, Strawberry Shortcake, Mango, Pineapple and Kiwi. All I know is that it is FDA approved and the inventor, David Burke, gave a kind of snake oil spiel on it saying it was natural and they extracted the flavor out of food leaving the calories and, uh, actual food behind. The ingrediants on the spray are:Water, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Cellulose Gum, Sucralose, Sodium Benzoate (as a preservative), Citric Acid. That doesn't look too scary. Doesn't look tasty, but doesn't look like it will kill you. Looking around on the web, there were a few articles about the product, but not much in how it actually tasted. The one site that did have some taste comments, were using it a little, uh, creatively ... so for the g-rated audiance I'm not linking to it. It seems either people like it or hate it ... and it can be the same flavor. Some people thought the bacon was great. Others, like the guy who sprtized it directly in his mouth ... didn't like it too much. Thinking about it, it kind of makes sense. You go to the market and foods are artificially flavored anyway. Why not let people just spritz the flavor on what they want. It's kind of chilling to think about. If this works, will restaurants just spray on the flavor? Of course you could always insult the chef by whipping out a can and spraying it on a lousy meal. I kind of liked this article that talked wishfully about having alcohol sprays some day and you can spriz a glass of water and ... martini. http://www.bayweekly.com/year06/issuexiv2/burtonxiv2.html This link has a hilarious (to me) picture and a link to the Flavor Spray website with more information inlcuding recipes like BBQ Pork Chops with parmesan asparagus and bacon-ranch egg noodles (only need chops, asparagus, noodles and sprays). Hot & Sour baked chicken, butter and parmesan corn on the cob, pepper city whipped potatoes (chicken, corn, potato, milk, EVVO, sprays). For the frittata recipe, the teflon pan is icluded in the ingrediant list. Link: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/13318370.htm Thu Jan 19 20:00:58 -0800 2006 0 rworange 1 1679995 Sorry I'm taken with this whole subject. I really hope someone has tried them before I drop bucks on this. The article below has lots more info. One woman has lots 60 pounds using these sprays on food. Burke's kids use the stuff to squirt on their breakfast cereal instead of sugar. Vegetarians are getting their hit of bacon. In the works, in addition to the sausage and peppers, are balsamic, cola float, Key lime pie. WHY balsamic ... it doesn't have any calories to begin with. He some day wants french fry spray so kids will be happy eating veggies that taste like fries. One interesting application is that Burke has donated the sprays to hospitals for people who can't swallow so they can still get the taste of food. It is really annoying though that none of the people in the articles have actually tried the sprays. I found one guy who got the bacon and the banana split spray ... and then squirted them both on the same item. Not trusting his opinion on the taste. Link: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:udg8CamcwY8J:www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bal-fo.flavorspray04jan04,0,545368.story+flavor+spray++%22david+burke%22&hl=en Thu Jan 19 20:48:16 -0800 2006 1679992 0 rworange 2 1680003 David Burke was on "The View" recently and the women sampled four of them. They liked the "butter" flavor (on popcorn)and one of the others, and distinctly didn't like one of them at all, but I'm afraid I can't remember. Their universal rejection of the one flavor made their enthusiasm for the others more believable. Fri Jan 20 00:12:44 -0800 2006 1679995 0 Dave Feldman 3 1680006 He was on Tony Danza today, but the tv was just background noise and I only paid enough attention to catch David Burke's name at the end. It seemed to me that Danza liked the sprays but thought the concept was weird. For some reason, it seems to me that he liked the birthday cake flavor, and that seems to get the most thumbs up. Here's a link from a tv appearance where someone called the butter and root beer flavor (sprayed on a fig) 'supurb'. But who can trust someone who sprays root beer flavor on a fig. It seems from another article, pizza is one of the flavors in the works. Didn't catch The View, but the transcript just mentioned he appeared and that he had the ladies blind test food flavored with the spray against the real thing. That was pretty gutsy if that's what happened. Link: http://www.mji-designlab.com/html/media/mbody.php?sg=16 Fri Jan 20 01:42:21 -0800 2006 1680003 0 rwornge 4 1680018 I saw that ep of "The View" and that's exactly what happened. He had a burger with real bacon and one without, and he sprayed the bacon flavor on the plain burger. Star liked the bacon spray burger a lot. And as said, they (it was Star and Joy) both liked the butter spray on popcorn. I can't recall the one they both disliked... I can see certain applications for it, like the bacon spray on a burger or on an egg sandwich. Fri Jan 20 10:17:47 -0800 2006 1680006 0 JonChance 5 1680037 I saw this epi as well. If I remember correctly, he sprayed a baked potato with cheddar and parmesean and they didn't care for either. Fri Jan 20 12:28:37 -0800 2006 1680018 0 Lizzy 6 1680110 Lizzy, I think you're right about the baked potato being the "carrier of the spray they didn't like, so you were probably right about what he sprayed on it - I still don't remember! But Star Jones, whose favorite food in the world is bacon, loved the spray. A chemist friend of mine was involved with the production of artificial popcorn flavors, and I was a guinea pig for him. I can't tell you how awful some of them were (and how hard he worked on improving them). I'm not willing to write off the concept. If a no-fat, no calorie butter-flavored subsitute can be sprayed on hot-air popcorn and yield something tasty, it's O.K. by me -- if the product is safe, of course. Sat Jan 21 00:27:38 -0800 2006 1680037 0 Dave Feldman 3 1681022 The one that they didnt like was the parmesan spray. They liked the bacon and butter spray. Wed Feb 01 16:40:09 -0800 2006 1680003 0 Jenny 2 1680014 Not that it matters to me personally, but in line with the vegan speculation, I wonder if the bacon spray is kosher or if the pot roast spray could be used by Hindus without violating dietary restrictions? Fri Jan 20 09:13:52 -0800 2006 1679995 0 Striver 3 1680063 The article mentions a vegetarian who enjoyed eating her zucchini with bacon spray, so I'm assuming they're all meatless, kosher and halal etc. It also mentions that they all basically contain salt, water and sodium benzoate. With modifications, I'm sure. The website is linked below. FWIW, and I'm sure most of y'all aren't really buying into this, there's something to be said about texture of food too. I personally don't think I could be satisfied with just the flavor of bacon, for example. Link: http://www.flavorspraydiet.com/flavors.html Fri Jan 20 15:13:28 -0800 2006 1680014 0 anon 4 1680066 I understand your point, but was thinking of the part of the OP referenced articles that referred to the "natural" part of the flavor being somehow "extracted" from the food source, which raises the philosophical question - for those with dietary taboos - of where the food stops and the flavor begins (or are they separable at all?). IOW, if any of the bacon spray started its existence in a pig, is that sufficient to render it unfit for kosher diets, even though the part remaining has zero nutritional content? The vegetarian might also want to think about this one. Of course, if there's no meat source in the "natural flavor" portion of the meat flavored sprays, it's a non-issue - but this isn't clear. Final thought - for dieters who miss a particular flavor, sometimes virtual will do. On a recent (successful) diet, I'd eat the occasional low-fat Klondike bar to get an ice cream fix. The bar obviously wasn't real ice cream, but it conveyed the idea of ice cream (kind of a Platonic thing), and - given my constraints at the time - it worked for me. These sprays seem primarily intended for dieters - maybe for someone doing an Ornish-like diet, a little bacon spray on an LT salad would help an occasional hankering? Fri Jan 20 15:37:37 -0800 2006 1680063 0 Striver 5 1680908 I actually bought the Bacon spray from Flavor Spray and was told by them its vegen friendly. I really loved this spray. I used it on a BLT, Eggs, and my salads. I think that this idea was fabulous. Tue Jan 31 12:50:17 -0800 2006 1680066 0 Helene 4 1680078 FWIW, on their "Online Shopping" page, is states, "Coming soon - Kosher-OU - application pending". Fri Jan 20 16:52:01 -0800 2006 1680063 0 Andy P. 1 1679998 This is bizarre, but interesting, in a kind of creepy, but kind of exciting way. Here are some basic questions that this issue raises: Is this food? Is flavor food? Is food without flavor food? Can spray-on flavor actually make food out of nonfood? What actually IS food? Or taste? Is fake taste as good as real taste as long as no actual food is involved? Or is good taste just good taste even if it's fake? Or is this spray even fake? I think there is much room for philosphical/aesthetic pondering and debate. Plus, I want to taste the bacon spray! Please keep posting. This is a totally new thing to me...want to learn more. Thu Jan 19 23:37:56 -0800 2006 1679992 0 berkleybabe 2 1680001 Babe, I see it as food the same way I see chewing gum as food. You look forward to the taste, and the flavor is there for as long as it lasts, but it offers no nuitritional value. So - I guess I would say it isn't food, but entertainment. Who is to say, however, that the two are mutually exclusive. Most food is entertainment, not pure nuitrition - isn't that what this is about? I'd like to try it myself. I am intrigued. It could serve a valuable purpose for those of us who crave certain tastes but can't indulge for one reason or another. I'd like to learn more about it, too. Thu Jan 19 23:57:12 -0800 2006 1679998 0 NYNocarbBarb 3 1680007 It strikes me almost as Ferran Adria for the masses. What was happening at El Bulli we can do in our own home. Will people want to apply old flavors to new textures? Would someone eat cookies and cream chopped egg whites or drink pot roast flavored oatmeal? Pot roast is in the works. Will people consider sprays as a part of their recipes? Why leave the office when spray on food is in your desk drawer and needs no refrigeration. The link below says there are 222 servings in a bottle. Like Berkeleybabe says, what will be food? Will companion industries spring up? We already get our nutrition through vitamins. Will, say tofu makers, produce flavorless products that we spray the flavor on? A piece of food with the look and texture of a steak, but waiting for us to decide how to flavor it. Or take it further and eliminate refrigeration all together. Can some sort of lettuce textured product be created that is correctly colored and sprayed with flavor and fortified with vitamins? Well for now, the Flavor Spray site says to spray your strawberries with the chocolate spray for guilt-free chocolate 'covered' berries. I'll have a bslt - bacon sprayed lettuce and tomato. The flavor may or may not be true in this first go round, but again, so many of our foods are already artificially flavored, we just don't have the control. It is creepy and futuristic and compelling. Is it the savior of the baby boom generation? In the link below it mentions as people age they loose interest or ability to taste. So do we give grandma's plate a few extra sprays so she can enjoy the meal with the rest of the family? In the link below Burke says "I created this unique line of flavor sprays so that people can enjoy the tastes of all their favorite foods without experiencing the guilt. In all my years of cooking and experimenting with spices, condiments and flavors, I have never come across anything that can enhance the flavor of food this easily." This is followed by the packaging concept which is a little disturbing for some reason. They made all the bottles identical except for the flavor name and the color of the label. Things with green labels are meant for veggies, red for meat and brown for sweets and snacks. Link: http://www.packagingdigest.com/articles/200512/6.php Fri Jan 20 02:16:27 -0800 2006 1680001 0 rworange 2 1680027 And thus a new (upper-middle class) food eating disorder is born. Fri Jan 20 11:50:13 -0800 2006 1679998 0 mod'ern 1 1680022 i know, it's a rant. feel free to skip it. in the natural world, the things that taste good are usually good for you, at least in moderation. the things that taste bad are usually bad for you, often in miniscule portions. all of the elements on the periodic chart have a taste, and the number of tastes increase exponentially when you begin to combine them. the ones that don't taste bad, and that don't kill you upon contact/ingestion, leave an awful lot of room for "artificial" flavors. personally, i think nature has done a pretty fabulous job of doing this research already. good food is all about finding those things that taste good, combining them in ways that enhance, accentuate and/or compliment each other. if you're going to relegate this process to a can, then you may as well eat processed foods and stick to fast food factories, since it's the same method they use to restore the flavor they process out of the "food" products they sell. if you need to lose/maintain weight, there's this thing called will power. eat the good stuff in moderation. your body & your senses will thank you. exercise a little, and it'll thank you even more. as we continue to overpopulate the planet we will likely reach a point where food has to be a factory manufactured product because land and resources won't exist to do it the natural way. there will be plenty of time for flavor-in-a-can products at that time. until then i intend to eat what walks and grows around me in the least adulterated form that appeals to me. if this stuff appeals to you, more power to you, but there are probably some better-living-through-chemistry sites out there at which you will feel more at home. it sure isn't food. Fri Jan 20 11:03:05 -0800 2006 1679992 0 mark 1 1680045 EEEW. This has to be derived from the same made-in-New Jersey crap that McDonalds and all the other fast food places spray on their food after they've processed the hell out of it to the point that it has no flavor. The asparagus I eat already tastes like asparagus and the parmesas tastes like parmesan. What on earth are people eating that they need to do this? Perhaps we could just spray it in our mouths and avoid food altogether. Voila! The next diet craze. On second though, I'm gettin me some pizza spray! Fri Jan 20 13:27:48 -0800 2006 1679992 0 Ellen 2 1680076 No, I don't think that all the fast food places really spray anything on their food to add flavor back in, and the insult to New Jersey was not necessary. If you don't like fast food, then don't eat it, but please don't just make things up. Fri Jan 20 16:50:13 -0800 2006 1680045 0 SuzyInChains 3 1680092 all the national chains use chemical flavorings to restore taste to their food products. the stuff is so processed that most natural flavor is removed. it's not sprayed on at the store, it's added in during the food product manufacturing process. many of the labs and factories that manufacture these substances are located in new jersey. it's not a knock against the state. Fri Jan 20 18:36:03 -0800 2006 1680076 0 mark 4 1680111 ALL the chains? Every last one? Name one. I have researched this - have you? An example from www.mcdonalds.com: Quarter Pounder® with Cheese: Quarter Pound 100% Beef Patty*, Sesame Seed Bun, Pasteurized Process American Cheese, Ketchup, Mustard, Pickle Slices, Slivered Onions, Grill Seasoning** *Beef Patty: 100% pure USDA inspected beef; no additives, no fillers, no extenders. **Grill Seasoning: Salt, pepper, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (cottonseed and soybean). Now, where's the "chemical flavorings to restore taste to their food products"? Unless, of course, you believe that all of the chains lie to us to hide the fact that they are secretly poisoning us. In that case, there's no use continuing this discussion any further. And be careful - the government can see through your monitor and is watching everything you do. Now show me a REPUTABLE source for your claim. Sat Jan 21 00:37:08 -0800 2006 1680092 0 SuzyInChains 5 1680118 Whether they use the flavours or not (shakes are a good place to find artificial flavours), the point remains that these sprays are a disgusting idea. What happened to eating in moderation? If you want some bacon, eat some bacon, but have one piece, not four. If there's birthday cake, share a small piece with someone. I'm definitely a whole-foods person (meaning cooking from scratch, not the expensive market targeted at guilty yuppies) -- know where your food is from. These sprays (which are, as someone else pointed out, made chiefly in New Jersey -- mostly in Middlesex County, where I grew up) are artificial and will only prolong the desire for something that may be unhealthy. It's worse than the grape-flavoured apples I saw in Vons the other day... and catch me eating at any of David Burke's restaurants... between his weird chemistry experiments on "Iron Chef America" and these bizarre flavour sprays... ick. Sat Jan 21 01:21:57 -0800 2006 1680111 0 Das Ubergeek 5 1680130 for an easy-to-read secular take on it, schlosser [fast food nation (2002)], is pretty good. this should be enough to get you started. where you go from there is up to you. i recommend exploring the bibliography. please note, "poisoning" was your choice of word, not mine. i would say they are needlessly contaminating their product and their consumer. little is actually known about the effects, especially cumulative, of these substances. if you reduce the scale, good food isn't that hard to do without having to turn to industrial food science. stand-alones and local chains may very well be safe; it's up to you to ask the questions to determine whether that's so. in food labelling, natural & artificial flavors/seasonings are often industry code for manufactured flavorings. ask yourself, if it already tastes like itself, why would they have to add flavor to it? there are a wide range of things that can be glossed over, hidden via obfuscation, or completely left off of food labelling; and it's all legal. the fda is as much or more so about protecting corporate interests as it is about protecting you. ask yourself, when is the last time you recall the fda volunteering to put out/require more information without a lawsuit and/or grass-roots campaign to instigate it. frankly, relying upon mcdonald's et al to self-police and honestly report what it's feeding you is pretty naive. just watch the news, left-wing, middle or right-wing, and you'll see where compaines frequently lie about anything they think they can get away with. they rely upon the herd mentality and the majority's unwillingness to better themselves unless under duress to skew things in their favor. they know you would be far less likely to eat their food products if you knew what was in them and how they are produced. for that matter, it's rather telling that the government classifies fast food restaurants and their suppliers, excluding the original grower (ie the farmer/rancher) as manufacturing facilities/processes instead of food service/producers. mcdonald's description of their burger may even be accurate. now ask yourself, what did they leave out? just for starters, it doesn't cover the flavored grease they cook it in. you might also look into the products and customers of: iff, givaudan, haarmann & reimer, takasago, flavor dynamics, frutarom, elan chemical. it takes some digging as many of these companies' clients don't want consumers to know that they use these products. all that said, if you're comfortable putting this stuff into your body, more power to you. neither you nor i can force anyone other than ourselves to eat the way we think people should. and by the way, if you send email and/or conduct business from the same computer you surf on, you will be surprised just how much information is out there about you. is someone actually watching you? probably not, depending upon your security and how lax you are with networked cameras. but, by no means is it impossible. Sat Jan 21 09:44:31 -0800 2006 1680111 0 mark 6 1680138 If you describe me as naive and then cite Fast Food Nation as your credible source, I see no benefit in continuing this discussion. Sat Jan 21 12:25:30 -0800 2006 1680130 0 SuzyInChains 7 1680202 please note, i did not cite "fast food nation" as my sole source. i said it was a good, easy-to-read place to start, and then encouraged you to look further. it is not my sole source, nor should it be anyone else's. interesting that of all i wrote, your only response is to take offense at a perceived slight to my use of the word naive, and to misconstrue my tip-of-the-iceberg recommendation. if you're so sure i'm wrong, let's see your independent sources. Sun Jan 22 08:27:36 -0800 2006 1680138 0 mark 8 1680239 No thanks. This is turning into the typical socio-political-economic 'anti-chain' vs. 'pro-capitalist' argument that gets people nowhere. I am not as suspicious (or I would call it paranoid) about the FDA, the government and the food industry as you are, and nothing I can say will convince you to change your mind, just as nothing you say could change my mind. Feel free to continue, but I will simply be an observer of this thread. Sun Jan 22 19:43:57 -0800 2006 1680202 0 SuzyInChains 1 1680212 This is the logical end point of the "molecular gastronomy" trend you identified earlier. The Pillars of Hercules are actually the Gates of Hell. :-) Sun Jan 22 12:05:33 -0800 2006 1679992 0 Bob Martinez 1 1680338 Sodium benzoate is one of the worst food additives. Artificial colors - also bad news. I dunno, rw, why not just save the time, money, and worry and just, for example, eat some really excellent cheesecake when you want the flavor of cheesecake? Or whatever. If it has to do with low calories, I recently read that people who eat foods that are marketed as "diet food" actually weigh more than those who don't. Tue Jan 24 11:13:10 -0800 2006 1679992 0 Niki Rothman 2 1680344 >I recently read that people who eat foods that are marketed as "diet food" actually weigh more than those who don't Doesn't that stand to reason? After all, why would people who were not overweight purchase "diet food"? My guess would be no more than a few, with either neurotic body image problems or strange food tastes... Tue Jan 24 11:50:11 -0800 2006 1680338 0 Striver 1 1680485 in honor of the website "thesneeze" oft refered to here, in particulary the "steve don't eat it" feature, we just had to throw any and all concern for the chemical nature of these products and get one. will report back once the bacon taste test has been performed. Thu Jan 26 12:54:15 -0800 2006 1679992 0 rumdrinks