Ah gotcha! I for sure was not following what you were saying. I don’t know if that’s he real thrust of the point in my above comment, but I was more referring to the fact that artificial vanilla doesn’t necessarily come from vanilla beans. I should’ve been more precise with my language, but it’s worth noting that artificial vanilla is largely synthesized and comes from a variety of sources, not just vanilla beans (see below for the source/pertinent excerpt).

It also gets weird as to how the FDA regulates the term. I believe the key term is actually “Pure” in the “Pure Vanilla Extract” but don’t quote me on that. Not sure how it’s done by other regulatory agencies but it’s probably equally convoluted in a lot of places.

Source: www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/…/vanilla-regulations

Pertinent excerpt:

However, many alternate routes to vanillin are well documented, including vanillin derived from spruce tree lignin, corn sugar, rice or wheat bran, clove oil, curcumin, or guaiacol.