WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: Are Pop Rocks Dangerous?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lord volcabam here with another classic episode from our erstwell host,

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<v Speaker 1>Christian Sagar. This one concerns a classic candy question. What

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<v Speaker 1>are pop rocks and are they actually dangerous? Hey? I'm

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<v Speaker 1>Christian Sagar and this is brain Stuff. There's lots of

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<v Speaker 1>urban legends about pop rocks candy like they supposedly explode

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<v Speaker 1>if you eat them with soda, and the kid who

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<v Speaker 1>played Mikey in those nine eighties Life Cereal commercials died

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<v Speaker 1>from combining the two. Have you ever heard those? Neither

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<v Speaker 1>of them are true. But here's one that was actually

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<v Speaker 1>reported in a nineteen seventy nine issue of Newsweek. A

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<v Speaker 1>shipment of pop rocks overheated in a delivery truck and

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<v Speaker 1>blew its doors open. If that's true, how did it happen?

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<v Speaker 1>And for that matter, how do pop rocks work? Anyway?

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<v Speaker 1>We know they are a candy that you put in

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<v Speaker 1>your mouth, triggering carbonation, a tiny burst, and a popping sound.

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<v Speaker 1>They were invented in nineteen fifty six by William A.

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<v Speaker 1>Mitchell when he was trying to create instant soda crystals

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<v Speaker 1>that melted in water. Mitchell was working for General Foods

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<v Speaker 1>at the time, but before that he worked in an

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<v Speaker 1>agricultural experiment station in Lincoln, Nebraska, where get this, he

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<v Speaker 1>blew his lab up and it left him with burns

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<v Speaker 1>all over most of his body. Yeah, it's true. Even

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<v Speaker 1>after that disaster, Mitchell still formulated a candy with potentially

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<v Speaker 1>volatile properties. Here's his basic recipe as it was refined

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<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty. All hard candies are made from a

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<v Speaker 1>combination of sugar, corn syrup, water, and flavoring. With pop Rocks,

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<v Speaker 1>you heat these ingredients to dissolve the sugars and additives.

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<v Speaker 1>Then you boil the mixture, evaporating most of the water

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<v Speaker 1>at atmospheric pressure. What's left is a pure sugar syrup.

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<v Speaker 1>Here's where pop rocks unique recipe differs from other hard candies.

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<v Speaker 1>Before cooling, the sugary mixture is gasified and combined with

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<v Speaker 1>carbon dioxide at six hundred pounds per square inch. This

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<v Speaker 1>takes about two to six minutes and forms bubbles in

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<v Speaker 1>the candy. Lower temperatures make larger bubbles and produce a

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<v Speaker 1>better pop. When the pressure is released in the candy cools,

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<v Speaker 1>it shatters into pieces full of these trapped bubbles of gas.

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<v Speaker 1>When you put a piece of this candy in your mouth,

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<v Speaker 1>it melts and the gas escapes, causing the short popping sensation.

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<v Speaker 1>Those pops are the sound of six hundred p s

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<v Speaker 1>I worth of carbon dioxide being released from each bubble.

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<v Speaker 1>P s i is a unit of pressure where one

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<v Speaker 1>pound per square inch of force is exerted. Before pop

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<v Speaker 1>rocks leave the factory, they're examined by a testing panel

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<v Speaker 1>trained to evaluate the popping sensation on a scale from

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<v Speaker 1>zero to fourteen. Zero represents no popping and fourteen represents

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<v Speaker 1>maximum popping. Anything lower than a seven is rejected as inadequate.

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<v Speaker 1>Ratings between seven and nine generate a satisfactory pop, while

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<v Speaker 1>anything between ten to twelve is considered outstanding because they

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<v Speaker 1>pop louder. But what about the delivery truck in nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>seventy nine where the doors blew open. Well, pop rocks

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<v Speaker 1>shouldn't be stored at over eighty five degrees fahrenheit or

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<v Speaker 1>they'll melt and pop in the package. So the combined

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<v Speaker 1>release of all that carbon dioxide is what opened the

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<v Speaker 1>truck's doors. All that stuff about soda explosions and Mikey

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<v Speaker 1>dying is just a myth though, but that didn't stop

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<v Speaker 1>it from having a major effect on pop Rocks reputation.

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<v Speaker 1>General Foods actually had to arrange a telephone hotline at

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<v Speaker 1>one point for anxious parents. They even sent Mitchell out

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<v Speaker 1>on a tour to debunk the rumors. There's all kinds

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<v Speaker 1>of variations on the legend. Today's episode was written by

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<v Speaker 1>Christian and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a

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<v Speaker 1>production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more

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<v Speaker 1>in this and lots of other pop and topics, visit

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<v Speaker 1>our home planet house to works dot com, and for

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<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

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<v Speaker 1>Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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<v Speaker 1>favorite shows.