The smell of this flavoring agent can drive crazy any gourmet of aromatic pastries, cakes, cookies, buns, yoghurts and other desserts. The product is used as an ingredient in food and perfumery.
The benefits and harms of vanillin have been known since the days of pre-Columbian America, where the Aztec tribes used it as the main component for making a drink from cocoa. Europeans managed to get acquainted with the fragrant plant only in the 16th century. They learned to evaporate the extract from its seeds, subjecting them to heat treatment and obtain a crystalline powder, which they began to add to food.
Madagascar is considered the birthplace of a beautiful orchid, the vine of which gave us fragrant vanilla. For all of us, the benefits of vanillin are obvious, which lies in its great smell and unique taste. However, orchid seeds can be beneficial not only in cooking, but also in health matters.
The essential benefit of vanillin for humans lies in the presence of polyphenols, it is a natural complex of antioxidants that normalize metabolism, prolong youth and slow down the aging process, neutralizing free radicals.
Due to the content of polyphenols, the benefits of vanillin in the fight against cancer and the prevention of cardiovascular diseases are known. In addition, the fragrance has an antibacterial effect, strengthens blood vessels, relieves inflammation, and has antiallergic properties.
The natural extract of the world’s most popular fragrance is very expensive and not often found in stores. And the harm of artificial vanillin is quite predictable, due to the presence of chemical compounds in it that are not beneficial to health. The most dangerous additive is coumarin, the mixture is carcinogenic, very toxic, and has a damaging effect on the liver. In addition, an imitation of natural vanilla may not contain those components that are healing for the body, which are in a natural product.
The harm of vanillin to expectant mothers is unknown; doctors have not registered any cases of adverse reactions to the plant. The harm of vanillin is possible in case of individual plant intolerance, which happens extremely rarely.
After large-scale studies conducted by Americans in 2004, the benefits and harms of vanillin in the ability to treat neurodegenerative ailments associated with damage to cells of the nervous system and the brain became known. These are Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Experiments have shown that vanilla successfully affects the formation of dopamine, a substance whose deficiency plays a major role in the development of these serious diseases.