The Truth Behind Marshmallows.

Marshmallows, a camp fire treat, an Easter treat and one of the most disgusting things ever made. Well right next to KFC's Double Down. Last night I was enjoying my Strawberry marshmallows, yeah that's a real thing, when a question popped into my head. What is a marshmallow? I already know its bad for me, but how bad is it?


Bad enough to destroy New York City

Marshmallows are made of three core ingredients. Sugar, Gelatin and Corn Syrup. When said like that it really doesn't sound that bad, so I decided to look into it a little more. Lets look in to Gelatin shall we?

Gelatin is a translucent, colorless substance made from the collagen inside animals. Yes, you read that correctly. Gelatin uses collagen from the skin, cartilage and bones of Pigs, Cows and wait for it, Horses. The gelatin companies get the skin and bones of these animals from meat companies that can't use them, it's like a way of making sure nothing goes to waste. Since the collagen is needed to make the gelatin is inside the skin and bones they need a special way to get it out. What might this other way be? By boiling the bones in acid of course! Now please turn your attention to my pie chart.

That 1% is the acid that stays on the collagen. That was a joke.

Sorry vegetarians and vegans, anything containing collagen or gelatin has animal in it. Do you have any idea how many things have collagen or gelatin in it? To name a few, many pill companies use gelatin on their pills to make them easier to swallow. Gelatin is also used on paint balls and playing cards to give them that slick feeling. Any soft drink containing beta-carotene in it. And lastly glue has collagen in it.


Does the cow on the front of Elmer's products make sense to you now?

Lets talk about the next main ingredient in marshmallows shall we? Corn syrup. As the name implies corn syrup is a sugary substance made from the starch of corn. The corn syrup is a lot like gelatin in the way that they are both tasteless. The main purpose of corn syrup is to prevent from sugar from crystallizing. This times into the other main ingredient perfectly. If corn syrup wasn't used in marshmallows than the sager used in them would crystallize and turn into rocks.

So to put this in a better light for you, marshmallows are the parts of animal that the meat companies can't use, added with liquidized corn and sugar. Sounds great. Do you have any idea how many marshmallows Americans eat per year? I'll give you a clue, it starts with a 90. American's eat 90 million pounds of marshmallows a year. That's about 41,000 VW Beatles. How do we eat that much? Lets go back in time for a bit.

In 1917 a Russian immigrant named Sam Born opened a small candy shop in New York that would forever change America. The store was known for selling great home made jelly beans up until 1953. In 1953 Sam made the worlds first peep. It took him 27 hours to make just one peep, and by 1954 peeps were being sold on a mass scale. Now peeps are only sold around Easter, but man, do they sell around Easter. In 2009 peeps sold over 700 million boxes. How could one company even have that many products to sell? To prepair for the Easter sales Just Born makes 5 million peeps per day.

But were marshmallows always this horrible freak of nature food? The answer is no. Believe it of not marshmallows, like porn, have been around longer than you thought. Marshmallows date back to ancient Egypt. Back than marshmallows were made out of the pith of the marsh mallow plant, yeah that's a real plant. The pith would be taken a mixed with honey and sugar than left to dry in the sun. This would harden the sugar in the honey and pith and create a though sugary treat.

So what started out as a natrail treat turned into animal bones a liquid corn. You've got to love modern food right?

The KFC Double Down, as mentioned earlier, two peices of fried chicken with bacon and cheese in between.