FOOD NEWS
What Is The Real Flavor Of Bubblegum?
By Elias Nash
Although bubblegum has a distinct flavor, if you check the ingredients list on a pack, it likely won't tell you that it contains anything more specific than "artificial flavor."
It turns out that bubblegum is made with a mix of artificial fruit flavors, with strawberry and banana as the most frequent contributors.
Other flavors in the mix could include cherry, orange, lemon, or additional berry elements like raspberry and blueberry.
However, we also perceive flavor through smell, so the artificial flavors in the bubblegum are more about the scent than the taste.
Flavor experts identify the scents in real foods and recreate them in labs. Bubblegum's yummy flavors mostly come from special chemicals called esters.
Esters are a combination of different alcohols and acids. The strawberry-banana bubblegum flavor comes from ethyl methylphenylglycidate and pentyl acetate.