The truth about how many chemicals are in everything we eat

The idea that there is a difference between "natural" chemicals, like those found in fruits and vegetables, and the synthetic version of those chemicals is just a bad way of looking at the world.

There are many chemicals in our food's natural flavors and colors. Some of them have long, scary-sounding names, too.

All foods — and everything else around us — are made up of chemicals, whether they occur in nature or are made in a lab. That means everything we smell or taste is a response to chemicals.

The characteristic smell of cloves, for example, comes from one chemical called eugenol.

And cinnamon, which is just the dried inner-bark of specific trees, gets its aroma and flavor from the compound cinnamaldehyde.

So, both artificial and natural flavors contain chemicals. The distinction between natural and artificial flavorings is the source of chemicals.