My 'natural flavor' lemonade turned out to be a chemistry experiment

I grabbed a bottle at the gas station because it said 'made with natural lemon flavor' instead of the one that just said 'lemon flavored'. The ingredients list had 'natural flavor' and then citric acid, malic acid, and sodium citrate. Tasted like sour candy, not a lemon. Shouldn't 'natural flavor' mean it tastes like the actual fruit?

3 comments

3 Comments

fisher.adam1mo ago

Yeah that's the scam. Natural flavor just means they started with something from nature, like tree bark, and then broke it down in a lab until it's a chemical that tastes vaguely lemony. It's a legal trick. The real lemon taste is super complex and expensive, so they use those acids to fake the sour punch and the flavor chemical for the rest. It's why it tastes like a lemon candy and not actual juice.

julia_lee1mo ago

Exactly, like @fisher.adam said, they start with a pine cone or something and call it natural. My last bottle tasted like the ghost of a lemon that once heard about sour candy. You get this weird chemical tang with a sour punch that feels like a prank.

holly_sanchez751mo ago

I get what you mean about it being a legal trick, but in my experience, natural flavor just means the source material is from nature, not that it has to be a perfect copy. The real fruit taste is so hard to capture cheaply.