- [Narrator] These are Skittles.
- It looks beautiful.
- [Narrator] And this is Bruno Xavier.
- Most of this product is basically sugar and fat.
- [Narrator] He's a food scientist
at the Cornell Food Venture Center.
- Oh, oh. - I go it.
- [Narrator] And Bruno's going to break down
how these ingredients make up one of the top chewy candies
in the US with annual sales of over $185 million.
(Bruno crunching)
- When you break the Skittles, you will see
that there is a harder shell,
and on the inside is a consistency
of a very thick paste almost.
- [Narrator] Skittles did not share specifics
about its recipe, but according to Bruno,
these ingredients are key to that texture.
- Looking at the ingredients list
and the nutritional factors,
we can guess what is the concentration
of each one of these ingredients in the finished product.
So we're gonna combine these ingredients
and we'll see what we get.
- [Narrator] First, hydrogenated palm kernel oil.
Hydrogenation is what helps this oil stay solid
at room temperature.
- When we scoop it up, it has the consistency
of butter almost, maybe a little bit more solid
than butter will be at this temperature.
That's why the hydrogenated palm oil is so important.
It will remain relatively solid
for a longer time and give you that experience
of chewing into the product for a little while.
So we need fat.
Now we need sugar.
The corn syrup will contribute to provide it some chewiness
to the base, otherwise it would be just too hard.
- [Narrator] Modified corn starch can work
as a glue to keep ingredients together.
Bruno will demonstrate how that works
with a little bit of water.
- You need to heat up the solution.
(Bruno chuckling)
Already forming blobs.
From here, it's acting like a gel already.
So now the mixture of water and corn starch
has cooled down a bit and you can see
that what it was very watery in the beginning,
now it's very viscous
- [Narrator] Only a little bit of modified corn starch
is needed, which can help bind everything together
into a paste.
- Starch is very messy.
Let me play with it a little bit.
Let's see what I got.
It's getting there. (Bruno mixing)
Ooh, it's happening.
There you are. Skittles.
This is a ball of dough, the base that we just made.
And this is how the Skittles looked like
after we removed the external coating
of sugar and colorant outside them.
So actually, this is a little bit slimier than I thought.
So it was too much corn syrup.
You can see that it's not hard enough.
- [Narrator] If you compare Bruno's dough
to the inside of a Skittle,
the candy is slightly more white.
- And that's why the titanium dioxide is added
to make that base look even more white.
- [Narrator] Titanium dioxide is a color additive used
in food, as well as in products
like sunscreen or foundation.
- So what we added here was probably like less
than 1/10 of a percent, and the effect is very noticeable.
- [Narrator] Titanium dioxide was banned in the EU
after scientists could not rule out genotoxicity concerns
but it is still approved
by the FDA for use in food with limited quantities.
- But there are concerns
and maybe there is more space for research to be done.
- [Narrator] Then there's the sugar shell.
- The interesting thing is that whenever you bite into it,
you're always gonna feel or hear that crack
of the outside layer, right?
(Bruno crunching)
- [Narrator] Skittles has 10 different color additives
on the label, all listed under less than 2%.
- We can show how intense these colors are.
So what we're gonna do is pour water on this pan here.
Hopefully we're gonna see the colors diffusing
towards the center.
- [Narrator] Color additives with names like yellow 6
or red 40 are typically derived
from petroleum or coal sources, and the FDA approves batches
of these ingredients before use.
- If you eat a spoonful of red 40,
it'd probably not be a good idea.
- [Narrator] Some sources have linked
specific color additives
to issues like hyperactivity or allergic type reactions.
- Our concerns around artificial ingredients are related
to the fact that we don't know the effects
of an artificial chemical compound
in our bodies until we study it.
- [Narrator] And the shininess?
- I believe the wax is also used to make the surface
of the Skittles look shinier.
Carnauba is a type of a palm tree, very common in Brazil.
Carnauba wax can be used to polish cars
and make everything look shiny.
And when it's melted,
it behaves just like candle wax, for example.
It's liquid, and as soon
as it goes down, it becomes solid again.
Actually, I had never heard of Skittles
until I came to the United States, so I was fascinated
with the amount of candy varieties that we have here.
But it's a very unique product.
The flavors are very thoroughly developed, very intense.
The colors are very stable
and it's a very successful product.
This is my favorite flavor, the red ones
I don't even know what they call the red ones.
I call them red ones.
(lively music)