Vanilla is in almost every kitchen, but what is in the bottle, the sachet or the pod differs enormously. A vanilla pod, vanilla sugar, Bourbon vanilla extract and vanilla flavouring do not taste the same, do not cost the same and do not contain the same. This article lines them up, with what is actually on the labels and what is known about them.

The core question is simple: when is real vanilla worth it, and when is the cheaper flavouring fine? And which is “chemical” and which “healthier”? The latter turns out to be less black and white than it sounds.

The five at a glance

Product	What is in it	Taste	Suits
Vanilla pod	the dried, fermented pod of the vanilla orchid, nothing else	the fullest and most complex	everything in which vanilla is the star
Vanilla sugar (ordinary)	in Imperial vanilla sugar by Dr. Oetker: sugar and flavouring	sweet and vanilla-like	biscuits, cake, batter, pancakes
Bourbon vanilla sugar	sugar, ground extracted vanilla pods, Bourbon vanilla extract (Dr. Oetker)	richer than ordinary vanilla sugar	baking, sprinkling, stirring through yoghurt
Bourbon vanilla extract (Dr. Oetker)	invert sugar syrup, glucose syrup, water, Bourbon vanilla extract	rich and full	custard, pudding, ice cream, pastry cream
Vanilla flavouring (Dr. Oetker Aroma vanillesmaak)	water, ethanol, colouring E 150a, flavourings	simple, mainly vanilla-like	chocolate cake, spice cake, batter

The compositions come from the product pages at Albert Heijn and Open Food Facts and can change. Always read the label of the product you buy yourself.

What is real vanilla?

Vanilla is the dried and fermented fruit of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia, originally from Mexico. A green pod smells of nothing yet: the aroma develops during “curing”, a process of weeks in which the pods are heated, sweated and dried. In the process vanillin is released from a precursor, glucovanillin. In commercial curing roughly 2 to 4.5 percent vanillin remains, measured on the dry weight of the pod. The figures differ by origin, batch and method.

Vanillin is therefore not the whole of vanilla. In an American study (American Chemical Society) fifteen vanilla pods cured in different ways were compared chemically with the ratings of a taste panel. Twenty compounds emerged that determine the flavour. Vanillin is an important part, but certainly not the only factor, and much of the complexity develops during curing.

Bourbon vanilla

“Bourbon” is not a brand but an origin. The name comes from Île Bourbon, present-day Réunion. Nowadays vanilla from the Indian Ocean, mainly Madagascar, Réunion and the Comoros, is called Bourbon vanilla. Sources do not entirely agree on how strictly the name is used.

Vanillin: the same molecule, a different source

Vanillin is the compound we most associate with vanilla. The molecule is exactly the same, whether it comes from a pod or from a factory. The difference lies in what else comes with it.

Vanilla from pods covers about 1 percent of the world demand for vanillin. That figure comes from the industry and is mentioned in a review article in the journal Biomolecules and by a large producer; it is not an audited market study. The rest is made. The main production route starts with guaiacol, a compound made from crude oil. A smaller share comes from lignin, a by-product of the paper industry. In addition there is vanillin made with micro-organisms from ferulic acid (from rice bran). In the EU such vanillin may be called “natural flavouring”, but under the rules below not “natural vanilla flavouring”.

What may be on the label?

In the EU Regulation 1334/2008 governs how flavourings are named. “Natural vanilla flavouring” is only allowed if the flavouring component comes for at least 95 percent from vanilla. If the label says only “flavourings”, that does not say where the flavour comes from. According to the product page, Dr. Oetker lists only “aroma’s” (flavourings) for Aroma vanillesmaak. The name (vanilla flavour, not vanilla extract) and the price point to an imitation vanilla flavour, but the label itself names no source.

Bourbon vanilla extract: what is really in it?

On a pack the ingredients are listed from most to least. In Dr. Oetker’s Bourbon vanilla extract the extract itself comes last: invert sugar syrup, glucose syrup, water, Bourbon vanilla extract. According to Open Food Facts it contains 53 grams of sugar per 100 ml. So it is mainly a sweet syrup with vanilla extract in it, not a pure vanilla concentrate. Unlike the flavouring, the label lists no alcohol.

For comparison: in the United States there is a legal standard for “vanilla extract” (FDA): at least 35 percent ethanol and at least 13.35 ounces of vanilla beans per gallon, about 100 grams of beans per litre. I did not find a comparable fixed standard for “vanilla extract” in Europe, so the name says less here than you might expect.

Difference in taste

A vanilla pod gives the fullest and most complex result, because you get all the compounds from the pod and not only vanillin. The extract sits in between: it contains compounds from real vanilla, diluted in a sweet syrup. The flavouring is the simplest: mainly a recognisable vanilla scent, without the undertones and nuances of the pod. In dishes in which vanilla is the star you hear that difference. In a chocolate cake or spice cake, where other flavours dominate, hardly.

Black specks are seeds, which you see in a pod. But vanilla sugar or ice cream with specks sometimes contains “extracted” pods (as stated for Dr. Oetker’s Bourbon vanilla sugar): pods from which the flavour has already been taken. The flavour then probably comes largely from the extract, and the specks are mainly visible.

Chemical or healthier?

Everything is chemistry

A vanilla pod also consists of chemical compounds, vanillin first of all. The question is therefore not “chemical or natural”, but what is in it and how much of it you eat. In the preparation of the European flavouring rules (a European Commission proposal from 2006) it was stated that there is no toxicological reason to treat nature-identical and artificial flavourings differently. The word “natural” is about origin, not about safety.

Safety of vanillin

The FAO/WHO expert committee on food additives (JECFA) set an acceptable daily intake of 0 to 10 mg vanillin per kilo of body weight in 1967 and maintained it in 2001. For someone weighing 70 kilos that is 700 mg a day. A vanilla pod contains roughly a few tens of milligrams of vanillin (my own estimate, assuming a pod of a few grams). JECFA concluded that vanillin as a flavouring agent raises no concern at current levels of intake. There is no reason to avoid a dish with vanilla or flavouring.

What else is in the flavouring?

Ethanol (alcohol): listed on the label of the current Dutch version. Anyone who wants to avoid alcohol entirely should choose a product with no ethanol on the label.
Colouring E 150a: plain caramel, made by heating sugar. In 2011 EFSA set a combined acceptable intake of 300 mg per kilo of body weight per day for the caramel colours. In a teaspoon of flavouring this is a minuscule amount.
Propylene glycol (E 1520): an earlier version on the Albert Heijn Belgium site listed it instead of ethanol, and it appears in flavourings from other countries. In 2018 EFSA confirmed the acceptable intake of 25 mg per kilo of body weight per day. So read the label: the composition changes.

Sugar

The extract contains 53 grams of sugar per 100 ml, so a teaspoon (5 ml) provides a good 2.5 grams of sugar. Ordinary vanilla sugar is mostly plain sugar. A vanilla pod itself contains no added sugar and the label of the flavouring lists no sugar.

So: which is healthier?

The honest answer: the health difference is small, because you use a teaspoon or a pod per dish. If you still choose on composition, the pod (or vanilla powder made of ground pods) is the only product with nothing added. The flavouring contains no sugar, but does contain alcohol and colouring. The extract contains the most sugar and vanilla sugar is mostly sugar. I could not substantiate that real vanilla is healthier in recipe quantities, so I do not claim it.

What does scientific research say?

A lot of research has been done on vanillin, but almost all of it in the laboratory. A 2023 review in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences discusses research on the effects of vanillin on the brain. The studies it covers mostly used cell lines and animals (mice, rats, gerbils). In those, vanillin acts as an antioxidant and dampens inflammatory responses, and the authors call it a promising compound. The review contains no clinical studies in patients, and the authors themselves write that translation to clinical research is needed. The doses used vary widely and are aimed at research, not at what you get from a dish. In one mouse model a low dose was beneficial and a high dose was not, so more is not automatically better.

For you as a cook that means: there are indications that vanillin has a biological effect in cells and animals, but there is no evidence that the amount in a pod, a teaspoon of extract or flavouring affects health. That is why this article does not claim a health benefit of real vanilla.

The origin of vanillin has been studied too. Vanillin from a pod, from lignin or crude oil, or from yeast processing sugar is the same molecule. Even so, they can often be told apart with isotope analysis (ratios of carbon and hydrogen isotopes). A study in Heliyon (2021) examined vanillin that yeast makes from sugarcane. The isotope values matched a recent plant source and formed a group of their own, distinct from other known sources. The author names limitations himself: a small study in one laboratory, and he works for a flavour company. He also writes that a single measurement is not enough to prove vanillin natural, among other reasons because the carbon value of different sources overlaps, so the hydrogen value is needed too. This shows that checking authenticity exists, but is not simple.

Which do you choose when?

Dish	Choose	Why
Panna cotta, custard, rice pudding, ice cream, pastry cream, crème brûlée	pod, paste or Bourbon extract	vanilla is the flavour here, nothing drowns it out
Cold dishes: yoghurt, quark, whipped cream	extract or vanilla powder	you taste every nuance, so real vanilla pays off
Cake, biscuits, pancakes, waffles	extract or vanilla sugar	the difference is smaller, but you still taste it
Chocolate cake, brownies, spice cake, speculaas	flavouring is enough	other flavours dominate
Batter and everyday baking in large quantities	flavouring or ordinary vanilla sugar	cheap and the difference disappears

An example from our own recipes: the Luxe vanille-rijstepap (luxury vanilla rice pudding) uses vanilla in three layers (pod, paste and extract). In Rijstepap zoals uit blik (rice pudding like from a tin) the flavouring gives the recognisable, nostalgic taste, with the tip to preferably use a vanilla pod.

What does it cost?

At the time of writing Dr. Oetker Aroma vanillesmaak (38 ml) costs about € 1.45 and Dr. Oetker Bourbon vanilla extract (35 ml) about € 4.59, prices that fluctuate. Per teaspoon (5 ml) that is roughly 19 cents for the flavouring and 66 cents for the extract. For a cake with a teaspoon the difference is about 50 cents. That is little when vanilla determines the flavour, and more than enough when you will not taste it anyway.

Using and storing vanilla pods

Slit the pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds. Use the seeds and the pod together.
Let the pod infuse in warm milk or cream for 10 to 15 minutes. Do not boil hard: milk boils over very quickly.
Rinse the used pod, let it dry and store it in sugar: that is how you make vanilla sugar.
Store pods airtight, dark and cool.
Replacing with extract: Dr. Oetker names 1 tablespoon of extract per pod for this bottle (product page at Albert Heijn). Other sources name 1 to 2 teaspoons. Start with 1 teaspoon and taste.

Truths and untruths

Vanilla flavouring is unhealthy or poisonous

Cannot be substantiated. Vanillin has been assessed by JECFA and at current use there is no concern. The label of the flavouring also lists only water, ethanol, caramel colouring and flavourings.

Natural is always safer

Untrue. “Natural” says something about origin, not safety. For the EU there is no toxicological reason to treat nature-identical and artificial flavourings differently.

Vanillin from the factory is a different compound

Untrue. The molecule is the same. A pod also contains many other flavour compounds, and that is where the difference in taste lies.

Bourbon vanilla extract is concentrated vanilla

Partly true. It really contains vanilla extract, but in last place among the ingredients, after invert sugar syrup and glucose syrup. It is mainly a sweet syrup.

Black specks prove real vanilla flavour

Partly true. Seeds come from real vanilla, but the specks can also come from already extracted pods from which the flavour has been taken.

More expensive is always better

Partly true. Real vanilla tastes fuller, but in a chocolate cake or spice cake you hardly taste the difference. And a more expensive extract itself consists largely of sugar syrup.

Frequently asked questions about vanilla

Does vanilla flavouring contain alcohol?

The current Dutch Dr. Oetker Aroma vanillesmaak lists ethanol on the label. Dr. Oetker’s Bourbon vanilla extract lists no alcohol. Products change composition, so check the label.

What is the difference between vanilla sugar and vanillin sugar?

Ordinary vanilla sugar is, according to the Imperial label, sugar with flavouring. Vanillin sugar means sugar with vanillin, so without real vanilla. Bourbon vanilla sugar, on the other hand, contains ground extracted vanilla pods and Bourbon vanilla extract.

Can I replace flavouring with extract?

Yes. Start with the same amount and taste: the extract is richer, but also sweeter, so keep that in mind with a sweet recipe.

Vanilla at a glance

The pod gives the fullest flavour, the extract sits in between, the flavouring is the simplest.
Vanillin is the same molecule everywhere, the difference lies in the rest.
About 1 percent of vanillin comes from pods, the rest is made.
Dr. Oetker’s Bourbon extract is mainly sugar syrup with vanilla extract.
“Natural” is about origin, not safety.
When vanilla is the star choose pod, paste or extract, with chocolate and spices flavouring is enough.

Remember this

There is no single best vanilla, but there is a best choice per dish. Use real vanilla where you taste it, and the cheaper flavouring where other flavours take over. In terms of health the choice makes little difference: we are talking about a teaspoon or a pod per dish.