Posts Tagged: ‘candy’
Children crave candy like ravenous fiends. Whether double-fisting gummy worms or pouring an endless cascade of sugar into their breakfast cereal, their appetite for sweets seems insatiable. Hold a handful of Twizzlers out to a hungry child and you’ll probably pull back a bloody stump. How did the Pied Piper lure all those children away? Candy flute. Sugar, as we discuss in this podcast, is the fire in which our larval humans burn.
Funny… An utterly different way to think about candy
by Marshall Brain | February 9, 2011
I’m not sure why, but this made me laugh out loud at several different points. Maybe it’s because the idea is so surprising. Maybe it’s because you get to manufacture everything yourself. Maybe because it is such a good facsimile. I have never seen anything like it: Has anybody else seen anything like this? Is [...]
Licorice! You might know it as the black jelly bean that makes you gag, the unsettling flavor in many a traditional liquor or, if you read this blog back in March, the candy that makes your transplanted kidney fall out. But hey, there’s more to licorice than puckered lips and catastrophic organ failure. Read on to find out how the black candy just might save a few lives.
When I was a young trick-or-treater, you could’ve earned my affection forever by giving me a full-size candy bar, rather than the misnamed “fun size.” However, if a neighbor did choose to give out the fun-size serving, then I’d give them a pass if they doled out more than one piece per trick-or-treater. What I’m saying, of course, is that I wanted as much candy as possible when I was a kid, and I judged my neighbors if they were stingy or tried to give me something healthy.
Now, as an adult, I do see the rationale for not overloading a small child with candy. Obesity rates are climbing and dental work is expensive. Still, Halloween is a day for fun, not a day for diet tips. So to assuage my guilt about feeding young children sugar, I’m also going to feed them fun facts about the candy they are receiving. You can do this as well! Educating children is just as good as giving them an apple. And an apple could have a razor blade inside, whereas these fun facts will just make a kid razor-sharp.
Deodorant Gum, Roller Girls and Fruity Musk
by Robert Lamb | September 8, 2009
I spent all last week researching and writing about saunas, so it feels right that I should happen on a mention of Fuwarinka Functional Candy and Gum in a Mental Floss article. Here’s the deal: eat this gum and your breath will smell like vanilla or citrus. An hour later, work up a sweat and you’ll coat yourself in a fragrant glaze of vanilla or citrus perfume.
Licorice Candy: The Bane of Organ Transplants
by Robert Lamb | March 31, 2009
I am not a fan of licorice and, quite frankly, I’m suspicious of anyone who is. Perhaps it’s simply my upbringing. My dad’s a dentist, so we tended not to have bowls of death-black candy sitting around. In college, I was never part of the Jägermeister crowd. As it turns out I’m not the only one with an aversion to this foul candy treat. This just in: Transplanted organs hate licorice.
Marshmallows are an old candy — they’ve been around since the 1800s. The name marshmallow comes from the original recipe, which called for sap from the marshmallow plant. Check out this HowStuffWorks to learn more about the history of marshmallows.
Hard candy (like a lollypop or a Jolly Rancher) is made from sugar, corn syrup, water and flavoring. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn how conventional candy is combined with carbon dioxide to produce Pop Rocks.
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