Why are marshmallows so much sweeter than regular candy? Here’s the secret…

During the Spring Festival, you can often see stalls selling cotton candy in crowded places on the streets. The vendor puts a small spoonful of sugar into the machine, and the machine starts to spin. Then he uses a small bamboo stick to scoop out a large ball of white cotton candy, and the children watching are stunned. Parents buy a ball for their children, and the children happily look at the big treasure in their hands, lick it, and feel it is particularly sweet.

Marshmallow

Marshmallows are indeed sweet, much sweeter than regular candy. Not only are they sweeter than regular candy, but they are also sweeter than the granulated sugar that goes into the machine.

What is the reason? Is there some untold secret hidden in the cotton candy making machine?

The faster it dissolves, the sweeter it is.

The most important factor that determines the sweetness of a candy is of course its ingredients. The main ingredients of ordinary candies such as toffee and fruit candies are sucrose and maltose, of which sucrose is much sweeter than maltose. Marshmallows are made of sucrose, so from the ingredients, we can know that marshmallows should be sweeter than ordinary candies.

But why do we feel that marshmallows are sweeter than white sugar?

Let’s first take a look at how marshmallows are made.

It is said that cotton candy was invented by two Americans in the late 19th century. The principle is very simple, that is, the molten sucrose rotates at high speed in the machine, and due to the centrifugal effect, it is "squeezed" out from the small hole by the centrifugal force, and quickly cools down to become cotton-like sucrose fibers. The sucrose fibers that form cotton candy are very fine, and the ball of "cotton" is very fluffy and looks very large, but in fact there is not much sucrose.

I don't know if you have ever tasted soft sugar, granulated sugar or rock sugar. Put a little soft sugar, granulated sugar or rock sugar in your mouth, and you will find that soft sugar is sweeter than granulated sugar and even sweeter than rock sugar. As we all know, soft sugar, granulated sugar and rock sugar are all relatively pure sucrose, with basically no big difference in composition, only the difference in crystal size.

The reason why we can feel sweetness is that the taste buds on the tongue encounter sugar molecules. If there are too few sucrose molecules, we will not feel very sweet. For sucrose molecules to encounter our taste buds, they must first be dissolved in water. Fortunately, there is abundant saliva on our tongues. If there is too little saliva, it will not be easy for us to taste anything. The particles of soft white sugar are very small, the particles of white sugar are larger, and the particles of rock sugar are even larger. Therefore, soft white sugar can be put on the tongue and can dissolve quickly. There are many sucrose molecules in the saliva at once. The taste buds encounter more sucrose molecules and will feel very sweet. White sugar is not as good, so the taste is often not as good as soft white sugar. Rock sugar dissolves more slowly. Some people say that if the time is longer, won’t it dissolve more? Saliva is very interesting. It will naturally secrete new saliva continuously, which will always dilute it. If there is too much, it will be swallowed. Therefore, for the same sucrose, the one that dissolves quickly will naturally feel sweeter.

Marshmallows are also made of sucrose, and they dissolve more easily in saliva than soft sugar. When you take a bite of marshmallow, it melts almost immediately. Therefore, it feels sweeter than soft sugar and granulated sugar.

Making Marshmallows

The magic of surface area

Now we know that the special sweetness of marshmallows is related to their ability to dissolve quickly in saliva. The reason why they dissolve quickly is that their fibers are very fine and their specific surface area is very large.

Specific surface area refers to the total area of ​​a material per unit mass. The finer the material, the larger its specific surface area. This is easy to understand. If you cut a piece of solid in the middle, the total mass remains the same, but there are two more faces, so the surface area is obviously increased. The more cuts you make, the more faces you will have.

Dissolution is a chemical-physical process that occurs on the surface of a solid. It is the result of the interaction between liquid molecules and solid surface molecules. Under the same conditions, the larger the surface area of ​​the solid, the greater the possibility that its surface molecules will interact with liquid molecules. Therefore, for the same type of solid, the finer the solid, the easier it is to dissolve.

This is true for the dissolution process, as well as other chemical reactions that occur between solids and liquids and between solids and gases.

For example, if we chew the food we eat more in our mouth, the contact area with the digestive juice in the gastrointestinal tract will be larger, and it will be easier to digest. Therefore, chewing slowly is conducive to the digestion and absorption of food nutrients and is good for our body.

Of course, if our food itself is very small, such as the steamed bread and bread we eat, which are made of flour, these fermented foods are very soft. After soaking in liquid and rubbing by the stomach wall, they are completely crushed to form chyme, which is very easy to digest. When starch reaches the small intestine, it is quickly hydrolyzed into glucose and absorbed into the blood, and the glucose concentration in the blood rises rapidly. If a person has problems with the endocrine system, such as diabetes, a rapid increase in blood sugar may have adverse effects on the body. Therefore, people with diabetes should be careful when eating steamed bread, bread, rice porridge and other foods. If these foods that are easy to increase blood sugar are mixed with some foods that are not easy to digest quickly and have a lot of fiber, it may be better and blood sugar will not rise too quickly.

As flour products, those "dead dough" are unfermented foods, such as dead dough cakes, thicker noodles (knife-cut noodles, pulled noodles, "cat ears", noodles, fish balls, etc.), as well as dumplings and pot stickers. Because the flour is not fermented, the flour ball is not easy to disperse all at once, and its specific surface area is much smaller than that of leavened foods such as steamed buns, so it is slower to digest and absorb, and its blood sugar-raising effect on the body is not as fast.

This is also the reason why glutinous rice flour products are difficult to digest. It is not that the starch contained in glutinous rice itself is difficult to hydrolyze, but that glutinous rice flour is not easy to form chyme because its specific surface area is very small.

Making Marshmallows

You should also know these common sense in life

Some chemical reactions are not easy to carry out if the surface area is too small. They are easier to carry out if the surface area is increased. Some elderly people have used coal stoves at home. When lighting the coal stove, we first need to light the firewood and burn the coal with the firewood. However, it is not easy to light thicker firewood with matches. If there are shavings from carpenters, it is easy to light. Compared with wood, shavings have a much larger specific surface area, so the combustion reaction is easier to carry out.

The oxidation reaction of some metals, such as iron, usually proceeds very slowly. It takes a long time for an iron nail to rust. However, if iron is made into reduced iron powder, this iron powder is not only fine, but also rough and porous, so it is easy to oxidize. Especially in the presence of a certain amount of water vapor, the heat generated by oxidation is enough to raise the temperature of the iron powder. Most of the "warm baby" and self-heating food heating packs we use use this iron powder.

If the fine solid powder itself can be oxidized, then this powder is fully mixed with air, and when there is enough air (for example, dust is formed in the air), it is easy to explode when it encounters fire. For example, in 2014, a particularly serious aluminum dust explosion occurred in the polishing workshop of a metal products factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu, which caused 75 deaths and 185 injuries on the same day. Another example, in June 2015, a water park in New Taipei City, Taiwan held a rainbow party. Due to the high concentration of corn dust in the space, a dust explosion occurred when it encountered sparks, and more than 500 people were injured and sent to the hospital that day.

Aluminum products are widely used in our daily lives and generally do not catch fire. Corn kernels are also usually not easy to catch fire. However, when the surface area increases, they become dangerous goods like explosives.

Many properties of an object are related to its surface, such as its shape, roughness, and surface area. It is always helpful to know a little about this.