Hi I was wondering if any of you folks have any experience, advice, recommendations, reviews ect.. regarding the use of sassafras flavors or essential oil extracts in e-liquids? I was thinking about exploring it as an ingredient in root beer and other flavors and thought I should ask before I ordered some being that it's an essential oil and I'm new to this. Thanks!
That is a good question. I am thinking sassafrass might be able to be steam distilled and not contain any lipids, but if you did it yourself from actual sassafrass, it would contain a decent amount safrole (I don't claim to pretend to know the safety on this).
Fun fact for those that don't know: Safrole is banned by the FDA (controversially) because it (allegedly) causes cancer when force fed to rats. This is based on an old study and has since be dis-proven, but it is still banned. Interestingly enough, it is also a precursor to MDMA.
I'd like to know if anyone else has any knowledge about this whether or not it would work.
Wintergreen, licorice, and vanilla are combined now for 'root beer' flavor, but let me just say for all the old folks, it's not the same. Nothing tastes like safrole.
Sassafras hasn't been included in root beer for quite some time now, were talking 1960. But there are species of sassafras trees that grow in my area and let me tell you, that stuff smells/tastes freaking amazing. It's not hard to understand why people used it in food, beverages, perfumes, air freshener, incense. The stuff is magically delicious! And the fact that it's the precursor to MDMA doesn't seem like a coincidence, magical tasty plant turned into magical groovy drug that cleans your third eye like no other drug can!
Hmm, interesting! Thanks for the correction. I'm surprised by this because I distinctly remember the home brewing extract suddenly becoming unavailable around '88-'90. I wonder what that was about? I suppose it's just another soda ruined for me by corn syrup, then.
> it would contain a decent amount safrole
I've looked at the studies they use to justify banning the use of safrole in food. It seems like they gave it to caged rats in super high doses for months and months and they eventually started to get cancer. I think there are other reasons for the ban. Possibly it's use in producing illicit drugs or perhaps it actually cures certain illnesses like allot of other herbal medicine but they didn't want there to be a cure for x because the pharmaceutical companies can make billions of dollars selling us crap for the rest of our lives.
Or maybe it's dangerous idk. The study looked a little weak and the ban seems a little hasty, and the fact that after all these years they have never revisited the study or done any further research, it just seems strange, especially because safrole is in just about every spice in all of our kitchens. It's in black pepper and oregano and like I said, just about every other spice has x% of safrole in it.
yeah, it definitely seems a little shady. There are other studies showing that the carcinogenic marker found in the rats' urine isn't even present in human urine. I just find the whole thing interesting because I used to eat sassafras leaves and drink sassafras tea a lot as a kid, and it grows wild abundantly around these here parts. I was kind of hoping someone with more knowledge re: steam distillation and chemical safety would chime it as well.
This thread got me eager to go find some come March or April. If nothing else, to make some tea. I will read up on steam distillation as well.
I got some LorAnn sassafras flavoring. It's safrole free but tastes pretty good. I'm still to curious to stay away from getting my hands all over some real sassafras oil. But for now this stuff is better than ok! at 2% it's pretty damn good, tastes like rootbeer!