The excerpt "Why Fries Taste Good" from the book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal written by Eric Schlosser mainly focuses on how the flavor industry incorporates additives to create the "natural flavors" we have grown to love, namely the Mcdonald's Corporation's French fries. Companies in the food and beverage industry such as Mcdonald's contract firms within the flavor industry to give their food its taste and texture using various esters, fats, gums, starches, emulsifiers, and stabilizers. Processed food items, such as French fries, tend to lose their flavor and texture after being frozen so there is a necessity of an artificial flavor. .
The flavor industry is very lucrative with annual revenues reaching over one billion dollars and approximately 10,000 new flavors each year. Yet, this industry is highly secretive. Many clients of the flavor industry do not want the public to know their flavors originated in one of the many labs, such as International Flavors & Fragrances which is located off the New Jersey Turnpike, that create thousands of scents and flavor, but rather in their own kitchens". Nondisclosure is a huge key in an industry that incorporates so many major brand names such as "America's favorite French fries". .
Flavors of food do not always consist of taste, in fact, as much as 90% of the flavor can come from the aroma arisen by the chemicals released inside our mouths. Color also greatly affects how taste can be perceived. Brightly colored foods when compared to blandly colored foods with identical components seemingly have a better taste studies have shown. Our taste buds are pretty limited as far as taste goes. Flavor scientists can mimic nearly any taste and smell imaginable, from burgers to shrimp and from Brut to Polo Sport. "A little odor goes a long way," a flavor scientist told the author.