this is really two questions in one:
\-how are manmade chemicals made ??? what are they even made of ??
\-how do they make chemicals targeted for a specific reason like making a vanilla scent or pain reliever ?
In: Chemistry
It heavily depends, because there’s as many manufacturing requirements as there are chemical compounds.
Some are just made in straight up chemical synthesis from simpler molecules.
Some are made by modifications of molecules that are similar.
Some are made by having microbes (sometimes specially modified ones) make them for us.
And some are just straight up taken from the natural source, because fucking around with chemistry is just way more work than it’s worth.
The last one I have personal experience with in pharmaceuticals, with antivenom. The way you make antivenom is you inject sheep with the venom, and let them make it for you. Then you extract blood (not enough to harm them), and go through many many filtrations to end up with the pure antivenom.
With flavours, some are really simple, like cherry. They’re made up of just a few (single digits) compounds that might even be easy to synthesise.
Some other, like meaty flavours (beef, chicken, pork), are made from yeast and soy by chemically modifying them in fairly straightforward but specific ways.
Then you have stuff like chocolate, mushroom, apple, various spices. Nobody bothers synthesising those. You just take the real deal and use it in your mix.
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