Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Bogelbaum here admit it. Even the most open minded
Speaker 1: among us have preconceived notions about ice cream by virtue
Speaker 1: of the fact that it's basically flavored sweetened milk that's frozen.
Speaker 1: Certain properties are necessarily associated with it. For instance, it
Speaker 1: melts when you're eating it on a hot day. It's
Speaker 1: also very difficult to light on fire. But the days
Speaker 1: of such predictable, old fashioned frozen treats are over. A
Speaker 1: team of Japanese scientists has developed a soft serve ice
Speaker 1: cream that won't turn to milk soup even after hours
Speaker 1: in the heat. And it's not because it contains the
Speaker 1: usual thickening suspects like diglycerides, kara gene in or polysorbate eighty.
Speaker 1: It's basically just regular ice cream with one small modification.
Speaker 1: The story of how we got to flammable ice cream
Speaker 1: is pretty good. It starts with a strawberry accident. After
Speaker 1: the earthquake and tsunami ravage Japan. It's the one that
Speaker 1: caused the meltdown of the reactors at the Hookushima Nuclear
Speaker 1: Power Plant. A Japanese chef was tasked with figuring out
Speaker 1: what to do with strawberry polyphenol, a compound extracted from strawberries.
Speaker 1: It all started when nobody was buying a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of deformed strawberries grown in an area affected by the
Speaker 1: earthquake because they just weren't shaped quite right. Researchers at
Speaker 1: Japan's Biotherapy Development Research Center wondered if instead of wasting
Speaker 1: all that fruit, something could be done with the polyphenol
Speaker 1: inside of it. They asked a pastry chef to create
Speaker 1: a dessert with it. The experiment went okay, but the
Speaker 1: problem was every time he added the compound to cream,
Speaker 1: it hardened right up. Baha lightbulb inventor Tolmi, a professor
Speaker 1: emeritus of pharmacy at Kanazawa University, told Japanese newspaper The
Speaker 1: Asaki Shimbun polyphenol liquid has properties to make it difficult
Speaker 1: for water and oil to separate, so that a popsicle
Speaker 1: containing it will be able to retain the original shape
Speaker 1: of the cream for a longer time than usual and
Speaker 1: be hard to melt. With this realization, Odah and his
Speaker 1: research team developed Kanazawa Ice popsicles, which hit stores in
Speaker 1: Japan last summer. They hold their shape through all sorts
Speaker 1: of treatment that traditional popsicles can't withstand, from hot sun
Speaker 1: to hair dryers. Now, Kanazawa Ice offers soft serve ice cream,
Speaker 1: which can reportedly be caught on fire without melting and
Speaker 1: can keep its shape at temperatures of a hundred four
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, which is forty degrees celsius. I want to
Speaker 1: get your paws on some flammable ice cream, Well, you're
Speaker 1: just gonna have to travel to Japan if you're not
Speaker 1: already there. Japan has no plans to export it just yet.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Jesselyn Shields and produced by
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: cool topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: com