Comments on: Candy Science Tuesday: Basic Sugar Chemistry

By: James Paige

James Paige — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:48:42 +0000

I’m looking forward to learning how corn syrup differs from sugar!

By: Candy Science Tuesday: Mikey and Pop Rocks | Candy Dish Blog

Candy Science Tuesday: Mikey and Pop Rocks | Candy Dish Blog — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:39:06 +0000

[...] candy science of Pop Rocks is surprisingly simple. They are made almost the same way as typical hard candy. The only difference is that prior to the cooling step, the hot liquid sugar is carbonated with [...]

By: Candy Science Tuesday: Corn Syrup and Cotton Candy | Candy Dish Blog

Candy Science Tuesday: Corn Syrup and Cotton Candy | Candy Dish Blog — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:57:42 +0000

[...] fresh for longer, especially in the disgustingly damp D.C. climate. If you can remember back to last week’s Candy Science Tuesday post (no judgment here, I don’t even know what I did in class last night, hmmm… maybe I didn’t [...]

By: CandyProfessor

CandyProfessor — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:39:46 +0000

Thanks for this, so much more fun and relevant than McGee’s _On Food and Cooking_, my current go-to for candy science (since I’m not a scientist…). I’m looking forward to future columns.

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:14:10 +0000

Kool Guy, I will let Mikey know that you still care about him and send your best. But you bring up an interesting philosophical problem of what truth is and what fact is and where (or whether) the two overlap. But this is not a blog about philosophy or religion or anything like that, unless you count that post I did about Scripture Mints.

By: koolguybri

koolguybri — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:43:36 +0000

Hey Carl, thanks for the info. I guess when it comes to food safety issues there are a lot of urban myths out there. A lot of chatter but curiously things like “science” and “fact” seem to get lost in it all. Bogus I say! Anyway, glad to hear Mikey is doing well.

Love the blog Laura

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:08:44 +0000

Hey Kool Guy. Let me answer the more technical question. Mikey didn’t die from that, and in fact is an ad exec in NYC:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/poprocks.asp

However, if he had died, it totally would have been soda’s fault, not candy’s.

Also, I am pretty sure Laura is way too young to remember Pop Rocks or Mikey’s Life Cereal commercial and the many jokes it led to in the days of our (or at least my) youth. I could be wrong. I haven’t checked anyone’s HR records to find their birth dates, but Laura was very likely born after Pop Rocks were discontinued in 1983. Poor child. She probably doesn’t remember Grady from Sanford and Son or the way Rerun danced on What’s Happenin’ either. Kids today.

By: koolguybri

koolguybri — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:01:47 +0000

Hi Laura, I have a question for you. I was enjoying some candy the other day and decided to read the ingredients label. It listed a bunch of ingredients, one of which was “confectioners glaze”. There were other ingredients that were described that had parentheticals listing everything that made up these ingredients, but the reference to “confectioners glaze” was different and a bit mysterious. My question is: What is in “confectioners glaze”, and why don’t they have to list it on the label? Was this some kind of lobbying loophole?

Someone told me that it was in pop rocks and that Mikey OD-ed on it, but that sounds like mularky.

By: Susan Smith

Susan Smith — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:58:52 +0000

Thanks for the education, Ms. “Rockin’” Food Scientist.

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:53:22 +0000

Great post, Laura. I’m really looking forward to these regular science posts. By the way, I don’t hate pandas, I just think they are kinda dim. Well, very dim.