I just finished trying an interesting snack, I took a look at the package and it said contains real and artificial ingredients. Now I've talked about this about 100 times on Candy Critic, for the most part I don't mind the idea of artificial flavors in candy. In fact I'm a big fan of some of the artificial flavors out in the world. I'm able to make the distinction in my mind that when a package says cherry flavored it might not really taste like cherries.
The part that gets me thought is those treats that say they have both. It confuses me completely, why not pick one and go with it. I figure it's one of several possibilities:
1) They use real flavors and artificial flavors combined to make this flavor. I can see this in the case of a fruit punch because of the mix.
2) In the case where you have more than one flavor of treat, like Skittles. Some real flavors may not be powerful enough to compete with each other so an artificial flavor can boost it up.
3) People in the candy business might be mental; they may dilute the real flavor with an artificial flavor to save a few bucks.
In the case of number 3 I say this because if you're going to put that both types of flavors are going to be used you might as well just go cheap all the way.
I wish I knew more about this, if you do please comment here or write me an e-mail explaining why.
Chris Stewart
Candy Critic
www.candycritic.org
