![]() The authors imply that caffeine from a factory is a chemical (worse, a synthetic chemical) but the caffeine from plants is a magical non-chemical from a "source."." Synthetic caffeine chemicals"? It would be impossible to come up with a more misleading term. ![]() ".and the significant price differences between naturally occurring caffeine sources and synthetic caffeine chemicals on the other hand, there is a high risk of fraud by false declaration of caffeine origins." "In consideration of the growing demand for natural drinks on the one hand." If you extract the caffeine from Coke and then put it right back in it now needs a label? But not if you do the same thing to coffee. Please. The FDA surely knows that there is no difference between the two. "The food and drug administration (FDA) regulates that caffeine must be listed on the label of drinks when it has been added in the production, but not for drinks made from tea or coffee." (See my book Natural and Artificial Flavors. "Bought" is an appropriate word because they're paying a whole lot extra (e.g., Whole Foods, etc.) for the same product. That's because people have bought into the "natural is better" fallacy. ![]() "However, people prefer food products made of natural sources to those made of artificial chemicals." Maybe for them, but in the real world, it is a distinction without a difference. "For manufacturers and customers, it is interesting to discriminate between natural and synthetic products." These guys may be good analytical chemists but they are putting out some mighty inaccurate (or perhaps, misleading) information about caffeine. Doesn't that sound like a European a capella group with bladder urgency issues?) (I included monstrosity #2 because I really like its name: Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite. and when you've figured this one out, there's this: If I stop with the chemistry now it will spare us considerable pain because there are some incomprehensible math monstrosities in the paper: To get around this, the group used a method called high-temperature liquid chromatography coupled to isotope ratio mass spectrometry (HT-RPLC/IRMS) to measure the difference in the occurrence of 13C in the samples and was able to identify two distinct groups: one where the caffeine in the product was natural caffeine and the other with the synthetic equivalent. MS measures the molecular weight of a chemical compound down to one atomic mass unit, so the machine can "see" both regular old stinky carbon and 13C and difference between the two isotopes. Instead, mass spectrometry (MS), a very powerful analytical tool, is used. Since 13C is not radioactive, the amount in a sample cannot easily be determined by the methods used to measure 14C, especially in 62 samples. For an explanation of how 14C dating works see Natural Flavors Are More Radioactive Than Artificial Ones. The natural occurrence of 13C on earth is about 1%.īy contrast, the natural abundance of an unstable, radioactive isotope, 14C is about 0.0000000001%. Despite this tiny amount, 14C is invaluable in determining the age of carbon-containing specimens such as fossils. The paper describes an extremely sophisticated method for determining the source of the caffeine in ~60 natural and synthetic samples based on the ratio of 12C (regular old stinky carbon, ROSC) and 13C, a stable, usually harmless isotope of ROSC which contains one extra neutron, making its atomic weight 13 instead of 12 (duh). Which ought to make you wonder why it was studied at all. That's because whether the caffeine in your hypermanic energy drink comes from a coffee bean, a factory, or one of the moons of Jupiter doesn't matter. ![]() While "my" studies may sound patently ridiculous they're just as valuable as the caffeine study for disseminating useful information. Do people who sit facing south while playing Mahjong fart more than those who face north?.Do people who have social security numbers ending with an even number recover faster from broken legs than those with odd numbers?.If you hold a Three Musketeers Bar (1) upside down while eating it will you consume fewer calories?.This can be illustrated by three theoretical studies of equal value, which I just made up. There is absolutely no valid reason to do this study. But the justification for doing it is pointless and disingenuous. Why mixed? The analytical chemistry is very clever and well done. The title is "Caffeine in Your Drink: Natural or Synthetic?" I stumbled across a paper by a group of German chemists from the University of Duisburg-Essen in the journal Analytical Chemistry which left me with mixed feelings. ![]()
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