You'll never dare to eat vanilla-flavored ice cream again and unlock the secrets of Vanilla Flavors.

Nowadays, there are all kinds of ice cream on the market, not only with unique shapes, but also in a variety of flavors, but some people still choose the most classic and least thunderous vanilla-flavored ice cream when choosing ice cream. But if somebody told you today that the vanilla ice cream you eat isn't really vanilla ice cream, it contains ingredients that ordinary people want to vomit when they hear it, would you still want to eat it? You may not know that global warming is driving vanilla to the brink of extinction. Due to a changing climate, 40 percent of the world's edible crops are on the verge of extinction, and according to the 2021 Red List of Endangered Species published by IUCN by the Global Union for Conservation of Nature, eight vanilla species native to South and Central America are listed as endangered or critically endangered, which means that people are quickly out of vanilla-flavored ice cream. Vanilla-flavored ice cream is considered by many to be the most classic flavor, and some people even think that vanilla-flavored ice cream is the base for all flavors of ice cream. Other flavors of ice cream are created by mixing them with vanilla-flavored ice cream. But in reality, the main ingredient of ice cream is cow's milk. Dried milk. As well as cream etc., vanilla. Chocolate. Flavors such as strawberry are mixed later. Although a vanilla-flavored ice cream is not too expensive, vanilla itself is actually a very valuable tropical natural plant spice. How expensive is it? In the last few years, vanilla has become the second most expensive spice in the world after crocuse, and at its peak, the price of a kilogram of vanilla even reached $700. But why is vanilla so expensive? Isn't it a legume that grows inside a pod? If it's a bean, shouldn't it be cheaper? First of all, just like peanuts are not nuts, blackberries are not berries, even though chefs are often seen on cooking shows scraping vanilla seeds from vanilla pods, vanilla is not a legume, vanilla is a reptile orchid. Then vanilla is a particularly difficult plant to grow, they need to be planted close to the equator, but that place cannot be as hot as the desert and have perennial rainstorms, and it also needs a variety of tall trees to protect them from the blazing sun and heavy rain. Just hearing about the above conditions is a headache, right? But that's just the beginning, it takes 30 months for the herbs to go from planting to flowering, and from flowering to pod maturity, and it takes another eight to 10 months, which means that growers have to wait three years for the harvest. And it's blooming for a very short time, only four to six hours a day, and growers only have two or three hours to pollinate it before the direct daylight at noon, and if you miss pollination, you lose the opportunity to plant. And that's not all. There's always a way to make the already difficult road to growing herbs worse. There used to be several rainforests in Central America that were perfect areas for vanilla, but because humans over-deforested those areas, they couldn't grow vanilla anymore. You may not know that vanilla is native to Mexico and brought back to Europe by a Spanish colonist, but the climate in Europe is not suitable for growing this plant, so no one has succeeded in growing vanilla in Europe. And then they came up with a way to transport this plant to an environment with good climatic conditions, which is why vanilla appeared in Madagascar. But if you look at the map of the world, you see that this pair of plants native to Mexico is a very long journey, and even though they brought vanilla into Madagascar, they couldn't bring the whole ecosystem in. Before the 19th century, vanilla could only be grown in a small area of Mexico because there was a bee called Melipona, which was the only organism in the world that could pollinate vanilla, so although vanilla was brought to Madagascar by Europeans to grow it, the vanilla vine just kept blooming and didn't bear fruit because of this little helper of natural pollination. After the 19th century, people finally found a way to pollinate vanilla, and the vanilla industry in Madagascar flourished, and Mexico's global monopoly came to an end, and now 80 percent of the world's vanilla comes from Madagascar. And cyclones are a problem, and a hurricane can wipe out three years of your investment. In fact, neither the long planting period nor the sudden hurricane can compare to the endless human desire. As Ayo just said, there is always a way for humans to make the already difficult road to cultivation worse. Because vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, a lot of people are greedy and go into the growing areas and steal the fruits that growers have worked so hard to grow for three years. Since the vanilla areas are mostly in the rainforest, you can imagine how bad the monitoring and security systems are there, and the vanilla will hang on the vines for months as it matures, which is a great opportunity for thieves and an easy way to get away with it afterwards. Because vanilla is not like smart products like computers or iPhones that, after they're stolen, users can track where things are by serial numbers, but vanilla is just an ordinary plant that doesn't have a serial number to track. Now, some growers, in order to combat rampant theft, have begun to stamp their plants to identify them as produced by their home farms, just as ranchers imprint their cattle. To put it simply, vanilla cultivation is more complicated and lengthy than we think, and because of the scarcity of things, the price of vanilla is rising. In 2018, the price of vanilla has soared to $700 per kilogram. But in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, that number plummeted by nearly 50 percent, when vanilla was priced at $350 per kilogram. Some analysts have analyzed the vanilla price crash in 2020 and have come up with two reasons for the price crash. The first is because no one dares to eat out, and the demand for restaurants has decreased. And the second is because everybody is locked up in their homes and can only cook or bake themselves. You might think it's strange that most baking recipes use vanilla, and if you bake at home, won't vanilla sales increase? It's not the case, in the modern era of technology, the major manufacturers have begun to use their creativity, from cutting corners, to making substitutes, to secretly adding synthetics, and other outrageous operations. Usually 60 milliliters of all-natural vanilla extract sold in the general grocery store cost between 7 and 10 dollars, but 240 milliliters of imitation vanilla extract with artificial flavors cost less than 1 dollar. Four times the amount, but seven times eight times cheaper, which is definitely the best choice for the average person who just wants to do some baking. And this isn't the first time people have looked for vanilla-flavored alternatives, and some food companies have used beaver gland secretions to create vanilla flavor. In ancient times, humans collected drugs directly from animals and plants, and the buttocks of beavers were not spared. To be precise, it's a pair of sac-like glands near the beaver's reproductive organs, which are covered with reddish-brown, creamy liquid, and beavers mix this irritating slime with urine and excrete it to mark their territory. These glands, when exposed to the sun, turn into resin-like substances called beaver incense. At that time, beaver incense was used as a natural medicine to treat epilepsy, constipation, spider bites, and so on. There were also Romans who lit smoking as a tool to induce labor. And then it was developed into a food condiment, and by the early 20th century, some flavorists were using beaver incense in desserts, such as vanilla-flavored ice cream, drinks, candies, and cakes. After listening to it, do you think that the vanilla smell on your hands, the ice cream is instantly not fragrant? In recent years, a lot of people have objected to extracting beaver incense, not because people are disgusted by extracting food additives from beaver butt, but because extracting beaver incense requires a very inhumane way. Most of the time, hunters kill beavers directly to extract beaver incense, and although there are more humane methods, very few people are willing to do it, because you need to put your finger in the beaver's butt. But you don't have to worry too much about the excess of beaver gland secretion in the food you eat, because the amount of this secretion is really very small, and as of 2010, it would only consume about 136 kilograms a year. And the price of beaver incense is actually prohibitive for ordinary people. Just one milliliter of beaver incense costs nine dollars, but a stick of vanilla ice cream is about one to three dollars. So you think about it, which ice cream merchant is willing to do this kind of business that looks like a loss? At present, beaver incense is basically used for configuration, and the relatively high-grade cosmetics or perfumes used in the food production chain are basically less than 0.1 percent. Instead of beaver incense, merchants prefer to use other artificial vanilla extracts, and when they extract vanilla ingredients, they mainly extract an organic compound called vanilla extract, which has the formula C8H8O3. This organic compound can be mass-produced in the lab, which is why there are so many cheap artificial vanilla extracts in supermarkets. From a chemical point of view, it's the same vanilla extract that you get from vanilla. But the taste of real vanilla and artificial vanilla extract is different, because vanilla extract is only the main component of vanilla extract, but it is not the only component that makes up the vanilla fragrance, and chemical components alone are not enough. But if you can't tell the difference between synthetic vanilla extract and real vanilla extract, Ayo suggests that you save money on the real thing and buy cheaper artifacts. After all, no matter what, artificial vanilla extract still has a vanilla flavor. If you're baking yourself, of course you can choose between real and artificial products, but if you're in the store and buy a pack of cookies, it's different, because the choice is not yours. So are you going to write to your favorite food company and tell them to stop using artificial vanillin? The answer is actually not. First, the alternatives used by merchants are basically artificial vanilla extract, which is the version of pure chemicals that Ayo just mentioned. Although there is still a difference between the taste and the real vanilla, the taste is very close to the real thing. Second, writing a complaint letter is really not necessary, because over the past decade there has been increasing pressure on food companies to abandon artificial flavors. Back in 2015, both Hershey and Nestlé made headlines for announcing the abandonment of artificial vanilla extract in favor of 100% natural vanilla. The same goes for Kellogg's and General Mills. Then in 2017, McDonald's also announced that it would no longer use artificial vanilla extract. Although there are still food production companies that continue to add artificial vanilla extract to their products in order to reduce costs and make more profits, the demand for real vanilla has reached new heights, and more and more food brands want to use real vanilla so that they have one more selling point. Coupled with the fact that more and more high-end brands are no longer trying to cut costs and use the cheapest things, but are turning to all-natural, the price of vanilla is higher than ever, so in 2018, the price of vanilla will skyrocket to $700 per kilogram. Whether it's real vanilla or artificial vanilla extract, we should be thankful that vanilla made by sticking a finger into the butt of a beaver is not the first choice. Do you still know the shocking secrets of food? Leave a message below to let everyone know! #网友保存了20年的煮鸡蛋成 "Ruby" #