You can find a limited variety of artificial flavors in unsweetened Kool-Aid packets. You can probably find them for $0.10-$0.25 each at your local grocery store. The downside is that some flavors taste quite dissimilar to the fruits they purport to mimic.
I use them with powdered stevia, and sometimes erythritol or xylitol, to make sugar-free gelatin desserts. Also useful for such purposes are the bottles found near the baking supplies: vanilla, almond, and mint flavors.
Another cheap natural source of low-sugar flavorings can be found in the outer layer of citrus rinds. Lemon, lime, and orange zest adds a bit of [bitter] flavor that is still vaguely fruity.
You can also get powdered malic acid and citric acid in bulk, which will let you make things more tart without making them taste like vinegar.
While it is difficult to find some flavors/fragrances in the grocery store, some essential oils are marketed for cosmetic purposes, for DIY soapmakers or perfumers, but you have to be careful to buy them as food-grade and do your own research into potential toxicity if you ever intend to flavor foods with them.
Thank you for your thourough answer. I'm in Spain, so the options are slightly different. Sacharine + cyclamate (I think it's banned from the USA) tastes much better than anything else.
Cocoa (with no sugar added) and orange peel is my favourite choice for the natural additives.
The artificial flavors are more or less the same. But it's very limited. There's no way to find the complex, more subtle mixes used in branded yogourths, say mango, papaya, kiwi, raisins and the more realistic fruit varieties.
I believe that the lack of choices is caused by the artificial bashing propaganda. People would not buy artificial flavors yet they're consuming them anyway, just because they're conveniently fooled by a few fruit bits in the mix.
I use them with powdered stevia, and sometimes erythritol or xylitol, to make sugar-free gelatin desserts. Also useful for such purposes are the bottles found near the baking supplies: vanilla, almond, and mint flavors.
Another cheap natural source of low-sugar flavorings can be found in the outer layer of citrus rinds. Lemon, lime, and orange zest adds a bit of [bitter] flavor that is still vaguely fruity.
You can also get powdered malic acid and citric acid in bulk, which will let you make things more tart without making them taste like vinegar.
While it is difficult to find some flavors/fragrances in the grocery store, some essential oils are marketed for cosmetic purposes, for DIY soapmakers or perfumers, but you have to be careful to buy them as food-grade and do your own research into potential toxicity if you ever intend to flavor foods with them.