DX Caramel Original confusion

E-liquids Flavors
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Hi :slight_smile: well, when i want to know the chances of any given ingredient containing corn, i usually google
" INGREDIENT corn allergy" or just “INGREDIENT corn” when feeling lazy, then pick the most authorative sounding link , or several for good measure.

And that’s exactly what I just did , with a view to answering your question, but now…oh sweet jesus…i just stumbled on something new, something I didnt know, here:

Gluten Free Society recognizes that corn gluten is a harmful component for the gluten sensitive. Studies show that people with gluten sensitivity can have reactions to corn gluten as well

Right now, I’m too stunned by this info to go chase up the links you asked for. Ofc. i’ll now be checking out the studies they linked to, etc. No need for you and your wife to panic just yet. The last info I read on this (again fom a celiac/gluten sensitivity website) said that having corn sensitivity along with gluten sensitivity was quite unusual and just due to an an unlucky chance.

PS. hang on , she’s just PG sensitive, not gluten sensitive, isn;t she? (phew!). I’m the one who drew all the short straws LMAO

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I think main problem with corn syrup is that it’s fructose which i’m told is a sugar and in alot of flavor west flavors like yellow cake .

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As of a month ago, she figured out by removing it, that gluten was the culprit for her migraine-like headaches! So, yeah…

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Since this is the precursor to the rest of your commentary, I thought it might be nice to clarify a few things.

First and foremost, I read through the wiki for vanillin here:

The notable portion (to my eyes) quoted below, has no mention of corn OR corn syrup (at least to my untrained understanding):

Now, that’s natural vanillin. And I’m sure that the majority of what’s used/sold to the flavoring related industry is synthetic… However, in the same link above, they do note the differences between the two (and include chemical compound charts/explanations for each).

I respect the fact that you have issues with corn and corn-products, and that you want to help spread the word, as well as continue to delve into further research. However, and I may be wrong, but it feels like you made an unsubstantiated leap here.

Again, my apologies if I’m the one who’s uninformed. But I think it’s more important to clear up the facts (or contents in this case) BEFORE anyone else gets potentially erroneous information.

/definitely curious, but need more input…

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Yes @woftam posted a link to Jennifer’s article. But if you look closely at the CAS #, and then look at the compounds contained in the GC/MS sheet (I posted above) for TFA Caramel Original, you’ll notice that CAS No. 57-48-7 is not on that list! Same for the DX variant.

Now I don’t know whether it has been reformulated since she wrote that article, or if it was just an error. But either way, in the here and now, it’s a non issue IMO.

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Just to clear it up I was sure I edited that post but it appears not
The confusion around the TFA concentrates is discussed further down the thread

I was also unable to find it listed on the TPA site however many vendors still list it as an ingredient so there is a bit of conflicting information

I would trust TPA they are quite transparent

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Perhaps on some sites some older stock is still being sold.

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(Just quoting you, not directed at you.)

This should come as no surprise to anyone who shops frequently for flavors.
Vendors often use their own labels and in the process the actual name can vary, so it’s logical that ingredients on said label might be modified as well.
I’m doing battle with a recipe-side user about this now.

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I’ll try to be brief, cos we’ve now established that the focus of this thread is actually on the sugar not the corn, and i don’t want to go too far off-topic.

Rather than post another link to a corn allergy website (I’ve already posted one such, and will just add that every such site I’ve ever visited lists vanillin as a source of "hidden corn’ . And i very much doubt that they all could get that wrong, so admittedly took their word for it. I don’t think that really counts as an “unsubstantiated leap” on my part though. It just isn’t humanly possible to do your own research on the lot. IMO) I’ve now looked though some relevant articles on food science and manufacturing processes, hoping that you’ll find these more convincing.(being that little bit closer to the horse’s mouth) This one is rather dated (2010) but has the advantage of putting corn and vanillin on the same pictorial diagram (third page down) , which clearly shows that vanillin can produced from corn (via sucrose) . You might notice that corn is the cheapest, most widely available, of the raw ingredients featured? Where i think the article might be a bit outdated is in saying that the alternative ferulic acid pathway utilises rice as a raw ingredient . As you see, ferulic acid, too can now be extracted from corn (maize). Indeed , corn is utilized in an ever-increasing number of food and pharma products.

It looks like the wikipedia entry is seriously dated re, the wood pulp , according to this 1997 article. " Today, however, whilst vanillin production from lignin is still practiced in Norway and a few other areas, all North American facilities using this process have closed, primarily for environmental reasons."

But, anyway, I think the following quote would be of more interest to most readers of this thread:

“The big difference between the prices of natural and synthetic vanillin, the increased demand for “natural” and “healthy” flavors have stimulated a great interest of the flavorings industry to produce natural vanillin by bioconversion from other natural sources.”

(from …sorry, posted wrong link…hunting for right one. Probably this Microbial Production of Biovanillin An interesting and relevant paper anyway)

…a reminder that so-called “natural” flavourings need not be derived from the source on the label. Indeed, with something as expensive as vanilla, the chances are that your “natural vanillin” is not what we would think of as natural at all. and has never encountered an actual vanilla pod. So i’m pretty disappointed in Wikipedia there. Hope some future update of that page makes that point clear…

Note the title of this paper :

> A Biotechnological Process Involving Filamentous Fungi to Produce Natural Crystalline Vanillin from Maize Bran

. And yes, that product could legally call itself “natural”

I’m pretty sure we’ve discussed what that term “natural” flavor really means on this forum before? But damned if i can find that discussion, so I’ll just post this link

EDIT: sorry for multiple edits. I’m horribly butter-fingered with posting links , besides being severely afflicted with tab-overload ATM )

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Not surprising at all but I am fairly sure at one stage it did contain corn syrup

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BTW, just ran across this:

given that most flavors for vaping began life as food flavorings . it wouldn’t be a big surprise if something like that had found it’s way into some vape flavours would it?

And it just goes to show how very wary you have to be not to take words like “pure” and “natural” at face value. Bodies like the FDA have their own, highly counter-intuitive definitions.

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My understanding is the Original has corn syrup , the DX is supposed to be without … My understanding is limited though … I think TPA would be up front with you , they seem to put all the info about their products , very transparent

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I just read the entire Wiki you posted. Holy Schmoly, it’s understandable why natural vanilla is so pricey…baking in the sun, taking in at night and tightly wrapping in cloth to cause sweating…etc. and it’s a months-long curing process. My obsession and addiction to vanilla explained. Thank you for the information :smiley:

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Beaver glands :scream: ? Thanks for the link. Hmm, should I buy 8 oz of Simply Organic Pure Vanilla Extract for $45 from Amazon or buy beans and make my own? Which bourbon should I use? Fingers tapping…

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I’ve never tried making my own , but people do say it’s simple, and much cheaper. If you’re avouiding gluten and/or or corn, though. findng a suitable liquor is a tricky problem. (…or not, if you buy the logic that the distillation process removes all the gluten. Now , I can’t argue with that logic, except to say that many folk on GF diets have learned , by bitter experience, to avoid anything distilled from gluten-containing grains. And that includes myself)

For my own part, I trust this stuff: Vanilla (MF), but that’s even pricier, ounce-for-ounce isn’t it.

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PS further to my previous reply, I just checked the citations on the Wiki article and found that nearly all of them date from around the turn of the century, and that the odd exceptions don’t relate to commercial manufature at all. So , until someone gets around to updating it, it’s not a good source at all re. modern vanillin manufacture, Food manunufacture is making constant “advances”

That said, you really do need to google the word “corn” (or “maize”), like i said, to get relevant info relating to corn. It’s a notoriously “hidden” ingredient, just like wheat gluten was, until some 15- 20 years back. Once it’s been converted into “glucose” etc. there;s no legal obligation to acknowkege corn as an ingredient, and, what’s more, the vast majority of food scientists , industralists etc would have zero interest in its derivation. Corn doesn’t get left off labels deliberately, it just comes down to an all-round failure to regard it as significant.

So, it would be no surprise to me, if it so happened that Wikpedia still failed to mention “corn” (just some commonly corn-derived ingredients) , even after updating that entry on vanillin.

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Normally I don’t hang out in threads like this, but I have scanned it from time to time and I note that it must hold the record as one of the threads with the most mis-information and chemical inaccuracies posted. Whew! I can’t comment on them all, but here is one for starters, because I am quite frankly surprised that the generally very knowledgeable food flavor types that hang around here have missed this one:

Bourbon vanilla typically refers to Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla. It is grown on the island of Madagascar, which is located off of the southeast coast of Africa and no actual bourbon whiskey is involved. Instead, the term Bourbon comes an earlier colonial-era appellation of Réunion island (i.e., Île Bourbon ). Madagascar produces some 75% of the world’s vanilla crop. Other regions that traditionally grow vanilla are Mexico’s state of Veracruz (the place of its origin) and the tropical island of Tahiti.

On the subject of corn allergy there are two important points. One is that a true ‘allergy’ is a reaction of your bodies ability to identify and react to foreign complex protein chains that it mis identifies as a “threat”. Simple molecules will not trigger such reactions.

From: Dr Janice Joneja : “There are very few published reports of allergic reactions resulting from eating corn and little evidence to suggest that corn is a food that is likely to trigger severe or anaphylactic reactions. Only a few studies have tried to identify corn allergens. Indeed, some allergists have questioned whether corn allergy exists at all.”

In order to have a true “allergy” you must have a chemical reaction between the equilibrium dissociation constant between the antibody and its antigen. This is a measurable reaction that can be studied and quantified in the lab. There is no known or measured reaction from corn proteins. Further these reaction only occur between very large and complex protein chains, not between simple molecules like sugar or Vanillin.

To be fair about all this, it is possible that there can be cross contamination during a low quality controlled food flavor manufacturers processes when using a precursor such as corn to get isolated flavor molecules. (again, the molecules, if pure, can not participate in antibody/antigen reactions. ). Additionally simple “intolerance” to certain foods and flavors is very common across the general population and is mistaken for “allergy”. Personally the flavor of bananas make me feel quite sick, nauseous and unpleasant. But that IS NOT an allergy. These “intolerances” are commonly mistaken for “allergenic reaction”, which brings up the following point:

It is worth noting that there is a large social culture that participates in what @Raven-Knightly called "“celebrations of collective weaponized ignorance” … This is not just occurring in the anti-vaping world, it is very much a part of what is becoming a large industry of food faddists that profit from selling to a group of self involved hypochondriacs. Allergies are one of their favorite feeding grounds. “Allergy Web Sites” as mentioned in several of the posts are loaded with horrendous mis information and scientifically unfounded rhetoric.

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prolly not the best place for a discussion on the science of allergies. But for my own part, I should note I used the term loosely as a catch-all for " true" allergies, the various types of gluten sensitivity, intolerances, mast cell disorders, Ig G4 disorders etc. , which was perhaps a bit silly, but all-too -common. I usually use the word “sensitivities” to cover all that lot,. I guess I better revert to that terminology :laughing:

Aside from IgE reactions (that is the “true” allergies) none of these are well enough understood as yet to make sweeping pronouncements, and can easily be misdiagnosed. or even disregarded . eg , its certainly certainly not true to say that someone with a mast cell disorder can’t suffer anaphylaxis, though it’s true to say that they don’t have a “true” allergy. Of course, the problem there is that they often get tested for IgE antibodies by doctors then given the all-clear.

I’ll confess, I don’t know what mechanism lies behind my own food sensitivities, and neither did my (NHS) allegist. He admitted that it was something, not entirely unknown, but so poorly understood by his profession, as yet, that the NHS doesn’t take it seriously; and then he wished me good luck, after advising .me to overdose on antihistamines, if necessary ( as my reactions clearly do involve histamine overproduction, as well as potentially life-threatening symptoms such as asthma) The word “intolerance” is often used , by doctors, as a catch-all for all of the lesser-understood sensitivities. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that they’re less serious Some really are less serious, some are not.

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Well, if you get those kind of symptoms several hours after eating the banana (as is commonly the case ) then I’d advise you to undergo a strict elimination trial (you can easily find instuctions on the web. I;ve done this several times over myself) to be sure it’s the banana, not something else. (ofc that wouldn’t prove it’s an " allergy" only that whatever-it-is, it’s definitely triggered by banana) But I’m guessing that you know full well it’s the banana cos you get those symptoms right away? and have correctly guessed that it’s entirely due to you disliking the taste of banana

Well, bully for you. That doesn’t entitle you to be mockingly dismissive of everybody else.

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No. Not mockingly dismissive of everyone else. Let me clarify why I made the post I did:

My understanding of the readership of forum.e-liquids is that it is composed of a broad hierarchy of people with various skill levels, educational background, and general knowledge about the subjects discussed.

This means, to me, that we (you and I) have a responsibility not to mis inform and confuse others, and must be very careful when we post to assure we use “words” in precise ways that align with their actual meanings, particularly when those words are terms of art in scientific disciplines. I can see from your posts that you do have a background in the allergy subjects. You said:

So that is all I ask, that we be careful. Then people reading here at forum.e-liquids that might be new or unfamiliar with the subject will get started off on the right foot

I am a NET tobacco vaper type and commonly harp on everyone here about the use of the word “tobacco”. I don’t do that just to be 'mockingly dismissive", rather the reason is to help with the common confusions. Here is a clip from a larger post I made in response to a poor fellow that was suffering from hopeless confusion about his first few steps in the world of vaping. The whole thread and my detailed post is HERE and I think it is a good read.

you came into vaping thinking “Humm, tobacco seems like a reasonable place to start…” So you used the word “tobacco”, not realizing that the vaping world you just stepped into was going to sucker punch you by changing the meaning of that word. It is just a marketing catchall word now that has rendered it meaningless. You said “tobacco” and they handed you RY4 ! What a dirty trick

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