Fake it 'til you make it.

Chances are that that the ice cream you have been eating has synthetic vanilla in it. Unless, you are like many of us who demand the real thing. 95% of all vanilla used is created in a laboratory and manufactured in a factory.

Also chance are that you have been enjoying coal tar.

German chemists Ferdinand Tiemann and Wilhelm Haarmann later found they could replicate vanilla by using chemical compounds from coal in 1874. This was a huge innovation for the flavor industry (which would grow to the $25 billion industry that it is today), because it meant scientists could make synthetic vanilla by using something other than the vanilla bean.

Just one of the many products along with cinnamon, paper waste, pine bark, and even cow poop has mimicked the taste and smell of real vanilla.

In the US, coal tar is not as widely used as it once was to make artificial vanilla due to health concerns. Studies show that consuming flavors derived from large amounts of coal can be carcinogenic. It's still used in Mexico, where there are fewer food and labeling regulations.

Real vanilla is the only flavor regulated by US law, which mandates that a gallon of real vanilla extract must have 13.35 ounces of vanilla beans in a solution of 35% alcohol. Vanillin, on the other hand, is not as strictly regulated as long as brands label their foods with "artificial" or "imitation" vanilla.

Because it's so cheap, annual global demand for imitation vanilla is nearly 37 times  that for natural vanilla extract.

What comes to mind when you see a food and beverage ingredient labeled natural? Read here for more.

The MOFAD or The Museum of Food and Drink recently opened in Brooklyn, and its first exhibition looks at the complex history of synthetic vanilla. It started in 1858, when French chemist discovered how to isolate real vanillin, the main component of the vanilla bean.