![]() That’s because what we think of as cinnamon isn’t really cinnamon at all, but a Southeast Asian imposter made from the bark of the cassia tree. ![]() This type naturally has extremely low levels of coumarin and proven medicinal properties, but that’s probably not what you’ve got in your spice rack. True cinnamon is made from the bark of the plant Cinnamomum verum (also known as Cinnamomum zeylanicum) and is native to Sri Lanka. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ve got some coumarin lurking in your kitchen cupboards. It’s even found its way into e-cigarettes. The chemical is used copiously in detergents, shower gels, hand soaps and deodorants and blockbuster scents such as Coco Mademoiselle (Chanel) and Joop! Homme. It’s still perfectly legal to add coumarin to tobacco and cosmetics, though it’s easily absorbed through the skin and the fragile lining of the lungs. “I was like ‘If I want to use tonka bean, I’ll use tonka bean.’”Įven if fancy restaurants aren’t your scene, there’s a good chance you’re being exposed from other sources. “I was talking to a vanilla purveyor recently and he offered me tonka bean paste,” says Raquel. Tonka and coumarin both still regularly turn up in Mexican vanilla flavouring, where they’re used to mask a low quality product. Two days later, they walked in: ‘Can we look at your spice cabinet?’”. Grant Achatz, who is head chef at Chicago restaurant Alinea, later told The Atlantic “They said, 'Don't be surprised if the FDA shows up soon’…. This is despite a government crackdown nearly a decade ago, including raids on several gourmet restaurants. “Let’s just say I know where to get em’, it’s not a problem to get them,” says Paul Liebrandt, the former co-owner of the Corton in New York. Both tonka and coumarin were outlawed.įast-forward to 2017 and they’ve never quite disappeared. In sheep, just 5g (around two teaspoons) is fatal. Studies in dogs and rats had revealed it to be toxic, with relatively low levels causing considerable damage to the liver in just a few weeks. It swiftly became a staple ingredient in tobacco and lent its complex aroma to the perfume industry.īut there was a problem. It was widely used in place of natural vanilla, added to chocolate, sweets and cocktail bitters, vanilla essence and even soft drinks. As one of the first synthetic additives, it was dirt cheap. Coumarin was first isolated from tonka beans in 1820 – the name comes from the Caribbean term for the tonka tree, ‘coumarou’ – shortly afterwards, an English chemist better known for inventing the first synthetic dye worked out how to make it in the lab.īy the 1940s, artificial coumarin was really taking off.
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