Acetone is the stuff in nail polish removers. Acetoin (which is what you’re thinking of, I’m guessing) is supposedly LESS harmful, but nobody really knows for sure. It’s the same type of chemical, just a step prior to diacetyl. According to TPA, It’s been shown that acetoin can ‘catalyze’ into diacetyl naturally so even if there isn’t any added diacetyl in something, a flavoring that contains acetoin (and also some natural flavorings that are extracted from fruits) can also contain trace amounts of diacetyl.
Basically, if you’re wanting to avoid diacetyl, you’ll probably need to avoid all ‘diketones’—diacetyl, acetoin, and acetyl propionyl.
You will go completely mental in a search for your answer on this and at the end of the day…no avail
Mt baker has a blog about Diacetyl if you are interested
but like I said nothing to my knowledge has been proven as fact yet so jump on down that rabbit hole if you wish…I did! Took me about a week to climb back out and I’m none the wiser;)
I have two concerns… flavor and value. When I see a car coming I get out of the street. The same with vaping. If I knew there was something to avoid then I would avoid it. I enjoy vaping too much to fear the unknown. Anybody who think they control their own destiny is a fool. You may be able to cheat a lot of things… but death isn’t one of them. I heard a saying as a young man that taught me to live in the moment. It is “As sure as you were born to die.” I learned then not fear the unknown. There are too many ways to leave this earth than to be so concerned about one. Live for today because tomorrow ain’t promised. I’m gonna get down off my soap box now and mute this post.
From what I know, most flavor vendors are trying to be “diacetyl free” but a lot of them use acetoin and/or acetyl propionyl as an alternative. If you check on a flavor in ELR, it will let you know if there’s a known issue with a flavor by displaying a little triangle, or you can check on the vendor’s website. Your best bet would probably be to stick with Flavour Art flavorings for the most part as I believe they are supposed to be free of diketones, or find flavors that are known to be clear of acetoin or acetyl propionyl. But, if you want any kind of authentic cream, milk, butter, custard, etc. flavor it is going to have either diacetyl, acetoin, acetyl propionyl, or butyric acid (another alternative to diacetyl).
Every Vendor has made a effort to go Diacetyl Free. Why I have no idea but they have. I don’t know how many times I have said this already on ELR, guess I’ll say it again. NO ONE has proven that Diacetyl is bad for you while vaping since our exposure is next to nil. The only PROVEN fact is the workers in popcorn factories have developed POPCORN LUNG from the diacetyl exposure that in one day is more then you will vape in a year. Know this, if they do not use diacetyl then they have to use a substitute. Those substitutes are Butyric Acid and Acetoin. It has not been proven that Acetoin is any better for you then Diacetyl. It is also not proven that Butyric Acid is better for you than Diacetyl, in fact there are those who believe it is worse. As @NewDrip believes, I believe. As I tell my wife, let’s not worry until we have something to worry about. I see nothing here to worry about…
Hence the quotes around diketones. It technically isn’t a diketone, but is lumped in with them so often that it’s easier just to call them all diketones. TPA calls them ‘custard notes’ which I guess works as well.
I cannot think of any substitutes from sugars to artificial to custards that are better for you, if not worse, than the real thing. In my experience, especially being a chef, you are just trading one devil for another. I believe in moderation and as @ringling put it our exposure is so low that I’m not having any issue sleeping at night.
Using the popcorn workers for example, they were basically breathing in 100% pure diacetyl powder day in and day out for years and developed the popcorn lung. I won’t lie and say that I am not the slightest bit worried because in their case it is alarming but for whatever reason they still are not even sure if that was the direct cause. I still use items with “custard notes” but I’m careful not to have high percentages if and when possible and I will sadly remove them from my juices when I have something to be worried about
I know companies like TFA have items like their DX line, Vanilla swirl, Gelato, etc that I supposedly free of all this but I can’t stand most of them IMO…I think the swirl and the gelato are the only 2 I actually like…
I guess it comes down to how proactive you want to be on this and unfortunately it takes years and a horrible incident to verify any problems…history has shown us this if you follow me. They thought cigarettes were good for you way back in the day and it wasn’t until years later and an ass ton of tests/research to find out how horribly wrong they were
I just realized it looks like I’m contradicting myself now haha The key word here is TRY and to explain myself when I first started out vaping I was going crazy with cream/custard flavors…I fricken LOVE them and I was always adding sweet cream here and Bavarian cream there. It wasn’t until an uber paranoid friend of mine brought to attention the whole diacetyl issue that I TRY to pull back more now. I now try to make newer recipes that don’t have creams or have lower percentages but the fact I was a smoker for 20 some years and never developed movie theatre lung from all the diacetyl in cigarettes doesn’t really make me afraid of what I currently use…
Mother$#@ker!!! How the hell did I just end up getting pulled back into this damn rabbit hole!!! Ok I’m done!
And that’s not even proven. It was only assumed that diacetyl was the cause.
Furthermore, if there is Butyric Acid and even small amounts of acetoin, acetyl propionyl or diacetyl, it could make the whole thing much worse. I posted this:
That said. I avoid Butyric Acid and don’t mind vaping the other three, and I’m not worried!
Yeah me2, I vape all day and at night have a bag of microwave popcorn as a snack. I make a habit now of not smelling the steam released from the bag of popcorn as I open it, I just hold my breath for a lil while…I should be golden. LOL smooth as butteh
Was watching NBC Dateline last night, story about a young girl attempting to fly cross country in a single engine prop. She was utilizing a GPS device and mistakenly omitted a zero when entering her coordinates. She ended up flying in the wrong direction into an inescapable box canyon and crashed. Yeah, the devil is in the details.
