"Something-FLAVORED" Never Tastes Like the Thing It's Supposed to Have The Flavor Of!

How come things that say 'grape' don't taste like grapes?

Hiya, Friends!  Boy, do I ever have a beef I'd like to chew today.  It's about foods. You know, I love foods.  I have, ever since I had my first spoonful of sweet potatoes all the way back in February Twenty-Twelve.  I don't want to go on and on about my sweet potatoes, because I liked those, and when I got to have the real thing, not all zizzed up in a blender even, I loved 'em even more. 

It's like that with a lot of the foods I eat!

The thing is, there's all kinds of foods out there masquerading as other kinds of foods.  For instance, the following candies/drinks bear no taste-bud resemblance to the foods after which they've been named: Watermelon Gum and Candy, Green Apple Candy and Gum, Grape anything, and fake maple syrup.  To a lesser extent, things that say they're Orange- or Lemon- or Lime-flavored.  I think it's easier to get those citrus foods closer to the real thing.  But they're not the real thing!

Is that real Maple Syrup you're fixing to put on my flapjacks?

I just don't get it, Big People!  Why even have stuff sharing the same name, when they taste nothing alike? Like the above-referenced different fruits, I love 'em all!  I love little Mandarin oranges, and I'm happier than a pig in slop if I get to have a lemon or lime wedge when I'm out and about.  I love the puckery sourness!  I'll pick the pieces of a green apple right out of any salad Mommy's eating, and when I get to eat fruit salad, the big, red chunks of watermelon are what I eat first!  I love the coolness, the crunch, the way the juice out of those fruits pops and runs down my throat!  It's the same with grapes.  I've taken a liking to real grapes, plucked right off the bunch, and sliced in half. 

Here's my beef, then.  When I bite into watermelon candy, it's too sweet.  Likewise with the grape candy.  I suppose you could say that grape candy tastes a little bit like grape jelly, but once you start talkin' jellies and jams, you're one remove from the fruit.  Kinda like Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon.  You can't say you know Kevin Bacon because you know somebody who's on the sixth degree of separation from him.  You can only say you know a friend of a friend of Kevin Bacon's.

Friends, insist upon real food whenever you can! It's just better!

That's how I feel about fruit-flavored candies, Friends.  You can't say that Apple-Flavored anything tastes at all like an apple.  If I'd had the apple-flavored candy first, I wouldn't go near an actual apple, and that'd be too bad!  You can't say that Grape Kool-Aid tastes like grapes, because they don't.  Real grapes aren't that sweet.  By rights, they oughtta call it Grape Jelly-flavored Sugar-Based Beverage with Copious Amounts of Food Color Squirted In It (TM)!  That isn't as catchy as Kool-Aid, but it's closer to the truth, anyway!

I don't even know where to start with the Maple Syrup.  I love real Maple Syrup.  The Maple-Flavored stuff is cheaper, I understand.  I get it.  And I don't even mind it.  It isn't the same.  At least they're honest with me on the label: they say "artificially-flavored."  If I know not to have my mouth set for a taste that came from a tree, but set for a taste that was created in a laboratory and made in a factory, I'm much more receptive to it.

That doesn't mean I hafta like it.

Friends, insist on eating real food whenever you can.  That's the rule I'm living by, and I hope you do, too!