The article definitely conflates these ideas:

1. there are real truffles that in his opinion are much better than the artificial flavor (fair)

2. the food industry is deceptive about real vs artificial truffle flavor (fair)

3. the artificial flavor is harmful because it is derived from petroleum (silly)

The problem with the article is that 1 is interesting but just, like, your opinion man, and also like a thousand dollars. And 2 is business as usual. So if you want people not to just say “Sure, but I personally really like artificial truffle flavor” (which I did, several times, while reading) you need to convince them there’s something sinister about it that there isn’t about, say, artificial watermelon flavor. But 3 is a huge miss.

That no one know how truffles smells and tastes, not even "experts", was the important part of the article. Also informing on how, when and where to get and ask for real truffle.

Artificial is bad if served as the real thing, that most certainly is harmful and dishonest.

The wikipedia article on dithiapentane is amusing:

> "2,4-Dithiapentane is the dimethyldithioacetal of formaldehyde. It is prepared by the acid-catalyzed condensation of methyl mercaptan, (the main aromatic compound in both halitosis and foot odor and a secondary compound in flatulence), with formaldehyde."

The issues with such synthesis or extraction from petroleum largely revolve around purity; I notice that online sellers describe a '99% pure' product, but what's in that other 1%? Sloppy cheap synthesis produces potentially harmdful side products.

I'm not familiar with food requirements (although a bit more with medical devices) but if you are selling something as food I assume there are some requirements that your side products and impurities are not harmful or present in sufficiently low amounts to be safe. Seems like GC-MS or something would be relatively straightforward and routine here.

The petroleum industry is pretty harmful. People caring about where the food they eat come from is far from being a silly thing.

It’s not silly. The petroleum derived product is probably loaded with carcinogens that they’re failing to detect/filter out.

If it’s the same chemical how can it be loaded with carcinogens?

Water from the pond is the same as water from my tap - they are both H20. Kind of like that, I imagine.

Water from a pond and tap water are both heterogeneous mixtures of things dissolved and suspended in H2O, they are in fact very different. A synthesized chemical will be identical to the same chemical produced in a plant. The synthetic counterpart will just be in a mixture with distilled water or a neutral food grade oil.

It’s a better analogy than you think. “Petroleum” is very much a hydrocarbon “pond water”.

How confident can you be that the end result is filtered appropriately, every time?

Its not filtered, its the result of chemical reactions and purification steps and you can measure the result. Same reason why your tap water is safe, the resulting product, either water or a purified chemical has impurities monitored by a variety of analytical techniques.

Absolutely. I always thought I hated truffles until I was more or less forced into trying a few dishes while visiting Italy.

Real truffles taste almost nothing like the fake truffle flavor you seem to get in most dishes. I think you made a great comparison to fake watermelon flavor vs. the real thing. It's only in the vague ballpark.

I now will have a truffle dish if it's done at a very high end establishment that deals with those ingredients on a consistent basis. I still absolutely cannot stand the fake stuff (like truffle fries) to this day.

I don't think the fake fruit flavors are based on the same compounds found in the actual fruit. I'm pretty sure it's a combination of Whatever Can Be Sourced Cheaply to "emulate" the fruit flavor.

I'll agree that an actual truffle, with all the fabulous fungus intact, is going to give a completely different experience.

But if the claim is that the truffle-extracted compound is somehow different from the oil-extracted compound, that's a lie equivalent to claiming Real Truffles are flavoring your truffle fries.

Strawberries and oranges seem the most obvious offenders.

Red and orange taste just isn't close.

Vanilla extract is another good example - sure, it tastes like vanilla, but real vanilla is so much more complex.

That's a bit tangential, I agree most simulated flavors with a single compound don't capture the complexity of a natural version with many compounds and more variation, however, that doesn't make them bad and in some situations, like vanillin in a baked good, its likely imperceptible.