Harry: From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all of the differences
between Skittles in the UK and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In the UK, Skittles come in the following sizes.
Firstly, we have these 18-gram fun-size pouches.
Then we have these 45-gram bags.
Then we have a 125-gram bag of Skittles.
Next up is what I think is the most common size,
a 152-gram bag.
Then we have this one, a 350-gram More to Share bag.
Then we have our largest size, which is this one,
a 1-kilogram big-size share bag.
And in the US, our Skittles come in these sizes.
First one, the fun size, 10 grams.
We got the 61.5-gram bag.
Next size, 99-gram box.
Yeah, the movie-theater pack.
The share size. 113.4 grams.
First of the resealable bags, 204.1 grams.
This is the Grab n Go. 255.1 grams.
Next bag up, the sharing size. 442.3 grams.
The family size.
779.6 grams.
Hey, good enough for the Egyptians, good enough for us.
Pyramids. Check 'em out.
This is the party pouch.
1.4 kilograms.
Have you noticed how good I am at pouring these Skittles?
Can this be a job?
Forgive me for getting cocky, but I haven't spilled one.
The biggest size, the jar.
1.53 kilograms.
Now, for "Food Wars" and general-consumer purposes,
the 1-kilogram bag is our largest size.
However, I did want to point out this one.
A 1.6-kilogram bulk bag.
I was able to find one of these online
without too much hassle.
I think they are more aimed at, like,
vending-machine refills rather than consumers,
but yeah, you are able to get 1.6 kilograms of Skittles
if you are a massive Skittles fan in the UK.
We also wanted to check how many Skittles
you're getting in each country
and also if there is even color distribution.
So Joe has asked me to count all of the Skittles
in a 1-kilogram pouch,
and we're also going to sort them into colors
to see how many you get.
What color order makes the most sense in your head?
The rainbow actually has a order of colors?
To me, it's a bit of a ROYGBIV vibe.
I'm more of a CMYK guy.
Harry sorts Skittles and asks you about your day ASMR.
Ah! Whoops. Whoo, God!
They're all running around like they have personalities.
Just keep seeing the yellow-and-purple color combination
and thinking of Waluigi.
Wah!
Eh and eh. All right!
OK, I have now sorted them by color.
It was satisfying, but it did take ages.
Now we have to count them all.
So now we gotta count these.
And I am not spending all day counting these. So ...
Two ... four ...
I figure out how much 10 Skittles weigh.
Jot that down. Step two, weigh each cup,
obviously subtracting the weight of the cup.
And then take the weight of each cup, divide by 10.
Six ... eight ...
Three, four ...
Um ...
Is ...
After far too long spent sorting and counting these,
we have our final totals.
I feel like we learned something,
but I don't know exactly what.
What have we learned from that?
Uh, do not do that at home. It's an enormous waste of time.
We did some science today,
and that is the most important thing.
Now, while Skittles look the same in both the US and the UK,
the flavors are actually different.
For example, in the UK, purple Skittles
are flavored with black currant.
Whereas in the US, our purple Skittle is grape-flavored.
Back in the early 20th century,
the US government made it illegal to grow black currants
because it was spreading a wood-destroying disease.
Now, the ban has since been lifted,
but black currants never really became popular
as a flavor here. Certainly not as popular as grapes.
When it comes to tropical Skittles in the UK,
the colors and flavors are as follows:
pineapple, orange, fruit punch,
watermelon, and passion fruit.
In the US, our tropical Skittles flavors are
strawberry starfruit, which is pink;
mango tangelo, which is orange;
yellow is banana berry;
we don't have a purple one,
so we have a green one, and it's kiwi lime;
and last here is pineapple passion fruit, which is blue.
The Skittle-flavor controversies continue
with our wild berry Skittles in the UK.
A, because they contain cherry,
which is very much not a berry,
and also, B, because the colors are all over the place.
We have cherry in the purple one.
Apple and blackberry with the green one.
Blueberry is the light blue one.
Raspberry is the pink one.
And then strawberry and kiwi for the red.
Our US wild berry flavors are kind of close
to that of the UK's, and we too have a non-berry cherry.
They even added "wild" onto the title,
but I'm not buying it.
Berry punch;
the raspberry, which is blue, I don't know why;
wild cherry, which is not a berry;
green guy is melon berry;
and the pink one at the end here is strawberry.
Now, if I had anything to say about this,
I think I'd mix the colors up as well.
I think in my mind, blue raspberry would make more sense
than the current blue, which is blueberry.
I think blueberry would make more sense as the purple one,
because as we all know, blueberry isn't actually that blue.
It is more of a purple color.
And then I'd probably put pink as the cherry one.
Full-flavor lineup. Ah!
And, of course, we have Skittles Crazy Sours.
In the UK, our sour Skittles
are flavored and colored as follows:
we have sour cherry as the purple one;
we have sour green apple as the green one;
sour pineapple is the yellow one;
sour raspberry is the pink one;
and sour mandarin is the orange one.
In the US, Skittles sour flavors are also different.
So, purple is grape.
This one says "the original lime-up,"
so I'm assuming green is now lime.
Yellow is lemon.
Red, strawberry.
And orange.
Do you think they're as crazy-sour
as the packaging suggests?
Let's go.
Oh, it's sour. Bleh!
A very sane level of sour, unfortunately.
We reached out to Skittles to ask them
about their flavor choices,
and they mentioned they had a variety
of methods of picking flavors,
one of which is something called "social listening,"
which I assume means checking social media.
And due to popular complaints on social media,
the green Skittle was changed back to lime
after 10-ish years of being green apple.
With all this talk about flavors,
it's worth pointing out that some people claim that
all Skittles might actually taste the same.
In an interview with NPR, neuropsychologist Don Katz,
who specializes in taste, said, quote,
"it is cheaper to make things smell and look different
than it is to make them actually taste different."
Dot dot dot.
So, Skittles have different fragrances and different colors,
but they taste exactly the same.
This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to you,
because if you've been stuffed up with a cold
or with allergies, you might know that
without your sense of smell, food can seem rather tasteless.
That's because our sense of smell is responsible
for a large percentage of what we taste.
General flavors like salty, bitter, sweet, sour,
those can be detected without smell.
However, more complex flavors,
such as fruit,
require both taste and smell to be recognized.
OK, Joe, I'm curious.
Let me see how many of these original Skittles
I can identify correctly without my sense of sight or smell.
So now, with the assistance of Yuelei or Joe,
so I'm going to go ahead and do this,
and can someone please place five Skittles in front of me,
and I will see if I can determine,
mask goes over the nose,
see if I can determine the flavor. Ready?
No. I mean, it's my mouth and my face.
Yuelei! What is going on with my breath and my mouth
that I'm getting pink eye?
Harry: My God.
You sicko.
Joe: Hey, Joe, are you going to try and trick me
by repeating flavors?
So, I've blindfolded myself.
Charlie has set five Skittles in front of me.
I don't know which colors they are.
I'm going to hold my nose as well, eat them,
and try and identify them.
First one.
Orange?
All right, wish me luck.
I really can't taste much.
That's tough! Wow.
I am literally just guessing.
I'm going to go purple. I have no idea.
All right, I need another one to compare.
That is making it way, way harder.
I think I got some more berry vibes from the second one.
I think the first one was a bit more sour,
so it was either maybe an orange or lemon.
I can't decide. Like, red?
That one, I don't have a clue about.
Lemon, yellow?
Last one.
Uh, red.
This is way tougher than I thought it would be.
I'm going to go with, like,
orange, strawberry,
lemon, green, and black currant, maybe.
Three out of five!
How'd I do?
[Joe laughing]
I couldn't taste anything. You guys wanna try?
That was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
I honestly think if I just saw it and still plugged,
then I'd be like, "Yeah, I got orange."
Sight, however, does not always play a significant role
in identifying flavors.
In June 2016, Skittles released a limited-edition
all-white version of their product
in order to celebrate London Pride.
They've carried on doing this ever since,
stating on the packaging that during Pride,
"only one rainbow matters."
So they ditch the rainbow in order to honor Pride month,
which is a nice gesture on paper. However.
Apparently, some people took this to mean white pride
and went on Twitter and voiced said observation.
The good news is that despite that,
most people did still appreciate the gesture,
so they have carried on doing it.
If they're all the same color,
how do you know which Skittle you're getting?
It's actually way harder to be, like, certain.
They have, like, a fruit flavor to them,
but they don't taste that fruity.
I was almost like, wait, did they also omit the flavor?
So now, because I can't see the color,
I'm not quite sure what flavor it is.
Here are all the Skittles products you'll find in the UK
that you won't find in the US.
Here are all the exclusive US Skittle flavors
you cannot get in the UK.
We'll start from this end and work our way along.
So, in the UK, we can get Skittles Giants.
Now, apparently these are Skittles
which are three times the size of regular Skittles.
They do look pretty beefy, I will say.
They are similar to the regular UK Skittles
in that they still have the hard shell
and they are the same flavors as the normal ones.
However, apparently they have a softer inside as well.
My issue with this is they do have a softer inside,
however, it reminds me very much of chewing gum.
So everything in my brain is now screaming at me
to not swallow this. I don't think I like that.
If, for whatever reason, you don't like
the crispy shell on your Skittles,
then we've got you covered, because in the UK,
you can get Skittles Chewies,
which are Skittles without a shell.
Something about these just looks a little bit
off-putting to me.
It just kind of looks like little balls of wax.
And again, something in your brain kind of screams at you
and says, "Please do not eat this candle."
The flavor doesn't come through as strongly
as it does from a regular Skittle for some reason.
I feel like they must have to coat them in something
to prevent them from all just clumping together in the bag.
There's something kind of slimy going on
on the tongue right now, which I am not a fan of.
I'm disappointed.
I'm not impressed.
This one, I mean, is this really a flavor?
It is the wild berry and tropical mix, flavor mash-ups.
If there's ever been a lazier exclusive.
Take the two things we already have, stick them in a bag.
Next up, we got Shriekers, Yuelei.
"Beware! If you dare. Shriekers.
Some are so sour they'll make you shriek."
OK.
[glass shattering]
What? What?
Are you shrieking? Like, is it so sour you can't handle?
It can't be you're not sure.
No one has shrieked once.
These expired in May.
We have the America mix.
No one is more patriotic than I.
I bleed red, white, and blue.
Mostly red.
But this feels a little condescending.
Because it looks like they just put the flag on it.
Like, what's the America mix?
Five flavors, three colors.
Oh! These are stale.
Yeah, they might have done this several years ago.
Last exclusive flavor, we have Brightside Skittles.
Remember that song "Mr. Brightside"?
♪ Wee-hoo I look just like Mr. Brightside ♪
I love The Black Keys.
But it's kiwi banana, watermelon,
paradise punch, tangerine, and pink lemonade.
That sounds a lot like the tropical mix, doesn't it?
These are dusty.
Compared to
a seemingly much fresher USA one.
I should have googled how old these are.
It does. These taste like shampoo.
Our next UK exclusive is Squishy Cloudz.
It's another product from Skittles
in which they have kind of ditched the shell
and gone for a more soft, chewy approach.
In the UK, these come in both the standard flavors
and also the Crazy Sours flavors.
I don't know what I was expecting,
but we have these kind of very soft, pillowy,
I guess Skittles.
It feels weird to call this a Skittle, but.
I prefer these to the other two that I've just tried.
So, as you can see, the sour version
has this kind of granulated-sugar exterior,
whereas the classic version does not.
Skittles gummies. OK.
First glance, it feels like
they're taking away the Skittleyness of it.
I mean, they're making just round gummies now.
What's the difference between Skittle gummies
and other fruit-flavored gummies?
And how much does the shape affect the taste?
Look how many greens I pulled out in one pinch!
Yep.
I'm a sucker for gummy.
I don't know why. I love gummy stuff.
These aren't very good.
I know gummy snacks
are maybe the most unnatural delivery system for flavors.
But these taste woefully manufactured.
Why are my gummies sweaty?
Skittles, I think you got a little more to learn about
gummy manufacturing, because these just,
these ain't it.
My boys in Sweden
are still kicking your butts with their fish. Sorry.
Then we're on to the final UK exclusive, which is this,
Skittles Stix ice cream bars.
The back of the packet describes them as,
"Fruity flavoured ice cream
with a secret sugar pearl centre."
Should I just bite into the whole thing?
Charlie: Yeah.
I feel like all of these
are different flavors of ice cream.
And one of them I am not enjoying,
and I can't quite tell which one it is.
Skittles freezer pops.
These have been sitting in my freezer for a month.
I'm thrilled to get rid of them.
Orange, because it's on the side here.
Every summer at the pool just trying to get this thing open,
just sitting there [growls].
Take me back, baby.
Those can stay in the past.
Last but not least, these guys.
Singles to go.
Little powder drinks. Make some juice.
Well, it's not real juice, right?
So, you got these little flavor pouches.
That's really funny. They didn't even bother with lemon.
They're like, "who cares."
Little green apple juice.
Who doesn't love a little green apple juice?
[lightning crackles]
Fun.
Yeah, very natural looking.
This is meant to be put in a water bottle.
Uh-oh!
It definitely has a strong odor.
Finally, they did it.
All the delicious flavor of green-apple candy
in your water.
These are terrible.
You have to be wondering the same thing
that I'm wondering.
I would 100% have done this when I was a kid.
The second I see these, I'm like,
"I'm putting them all in one, and I'm going to chug it."
Oh, it's turning, like, a brownie barf color, you see that?
This right here is called tasting the rainbow.
[coughing]
Drink the rainbow!
I'll have one more sip.
Like a fine wine. Why -- wah!
You can also get kosher Skittles
and Skittles gum.
Original Skittles in the UK contain the following.
Original Skittles in the US contain:
Artificial colors like Red 40, Yellow 5,
Yellow 6, and Blue 1 are restricted in the UK
because studies have linked them to hyperactivity
and attention deficit in children.
Food and drink containing these things in the UK
have to bear a warning label
about these potential adverse affects, which means that
most manufacturers will simply avoid using them.
But not here.
Also, one chemical you won't be eating in the EU
anytime soon is titanium dioxide.
The European Food Safety Authority
found it could no longer be considered safe
when used as a food additive.
Specifically, the panel concluded that
titanium dioxide particles "have the potential
to induce DNA strand breaks and chromosomal damage."
What?
Just feel my particles just pshh.
Harry: Breaking news coming to you live
from the "Food Wars" news desk.
Shortly after we recorded this episode,
Mars Inc. was actually hit by a class-action lawsuit
in the US. The suit alleges that Skittles
are "unfit for human consumption"
due to the presence of titanium dioxide.
The suit points to the EFSA ruling
as well as the fact Mars themselves
had committed to removing artificial colors
from their products back in 2016,
a promise they've since backtracked on.
Mars isn't backing down just yet,
telling The New York Times that its use
of titanium dioxide is "in compliance
with strict quality and safety requirements
established by food safety regulators, including the F.D.A."
We'll have to wait and see how the trial unfolds
to see if there's any bearing on food-safety laws
around titanium dioxide in the US
and potentially even the UK.
In slightly better news, standard Skittles
do not contain any animal-derived gelatin,
so they are suitable for vegans.
In the UK, a 45-gram bag of Skittles contains 179 calories.
This entire bag is 250 calories, so.
We're going to quickly count these out
and figure out the calorie count per Skittle.
How many Skittles in a bag?
Fifty ... two.
By my count, a 45-gram bag in the UK
contained around 52 Skittles.
That means that the calorie count per Skittle is 3.44.
That's 4.24 calories per Skittle.
As for sugar content, this tiny bag contains
66.4% of your recommended daily allowance.
That seems like a lot.
Gotta go bigger in the US. Ours is 90%.
In the US, they have Brightside Skittles
for when you're coming out of your cage
and you've been doing just fine.
You know, you, siblings, folks
going to town on a bag of Skittles.
Just sitting around a table eating in silence.
Mm. Sugar.