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What's In Fast Food? Here's The Secret Many Smells Are Created In A Laboratory POSTED: 7:29 p.m. EST February
13, 2002 UPDATED: 1:47 p.m. EST February
14, 2002
We've all felt it! That irresistible urge to go into a fast-food restaurant
after catching a whiff of a delicious smell. But many of the secrets being used
to entice customers come straight out of the lab instead of hot off the grill. Millions of Americans grew up
enjoying burgers, shakes, and fries. We all know that fast food is not the
healthiest choice. But it is fast. So many Americans eat fast food
that it averages out to three burgers and four orders of fries per person per
week. A new fast-food restaurant
opens in the United States every two hours. The food may be fast and easy,
but there's nothing simple about what goes into it. The moment patrons walk in the
door, they are hit with lab-developed smells. "The industry as a whole
is piping in the aromas above the door. They pipe it in above their doorways so
you get a hit of it as you walk in. It makes you start to salivate," said
Sheila Moore, a chemist who created many of the fast-food smells we know and
love. Her clients include McDonald's,
Wendy's, Burger King and Pizza Hut. Did you ever wonder why fast
food tastes lousy when its re-heated? The flavor and smell texture
coatings aren't designed to last after the initial cooking process. "There's lard or beef fat
flavor that goes on McDonald's french fries. Burger King has their own. It also
goes through a sugar bath before they're fried," Moore said. But do you want to know what's
in it, other than fat that makes it taste so good? A lot of it is lab-developed
flavoring. "This is a jar of
strawberry flavor," Moore said as she held up a jar. "You'll probably find very
little real strawberry in a strawberry shake, but you will find lab derived
flavor crystals," Moore said. "As soon as you smell it you think of a
real strawberry as though you just picked it and were eating it," she said.
It's these tricks of the trade
that keep millions and millions of Americans coming back for more.
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