Hmm, why does visiting the vault always make me so hungry?
My tummy is absolutely rumbling, and what do i have with me?
Not much, just my emergency candy stash.
Lucky for that, though.
All right, one jelly bean, maybe two, and oh, as i've been fishing around in this bag, i've spotted our shortcut to sugar And, if I remember correctly, this one looks at why humans love sweet stuff so much.
How sugar pops up everywhere from jam to medicine.
And I reckon Amanda tells us about some of the weirdest sugary treats that we'll find all around the world.
So let's open it up, press play and try not to drool too much.
This is a Squiz Kids podcast.
Your fresh take on what's happening in the world around you.
It can be used to treat wounds, maybe even drive cars, but most of you know it from delicious sweet treats.
This is your squiz kids shortcut to sugar, the podcast where we dive into the who what when where, why and how of the big news stories.
I'm amanda bauer and i'm bryce court.
Now, I don't know about you Bryce, but I love a little sweet treat at the end of a meal.
Maybe a crunchy pink lady apple or a square of chocolate.
Oh, yeah, now you're talking.
Or, let's face it, sometimes an embarrassing amount of shortbread.
Today we'll take you through why humans love sugar so much, how we use it and where to sample some unusual sugary treats.
Listen carefully, there's a squiz at the end.
Why?
Rightio Bryce, let's hop into the Squiz Kids time machine and head back, way back millions of years, to the time of the apes.
Our primate ancestors survived mostly on fruit, and they had evolved to like riper and sweeter fruit because it had a higher sugar content.
Now more sugar meant more energy, which meant you were more likely to survive.
And of course we're not talking here about the kind of white crystal sugar that comes in a bag, but the sugar that's in plants.
Yeah, exactly right.
Now, sugar is found in the fibres of all plants because it's a by-product of photosynthesis.
Of course, that's the process where plants turn sunlight into energy.
Now, when humans evolved from apes, we inherited that craving for sweet things, because sweetness meant energy.
Right.
And back then, we were hunter-gatherers.
We had to work hard to get food.
LAUGHTER
Sure did.
There were no such thing as a supermarket or a drive-thru back in those days.
No way, Jose.
It was an advantage to your survival if you liked sweet things.
You'd eat more sugar, you'd get more energy, you'd be more likely to survive.
And then, of course, your kids would have those same sweet craving genes all the way through to us today.
But, Bryce, there is a key difference.
What's that?
Back when our ancestors were hunting and gathering their food, they weren't craving ice cream or lollies or cake.
A sweet treat for them would be a berry or a ripe fruit.
So the challenge now is that there's so much more food and so much more sugar available to us.
We have to be careful not to fall for those cravings too often.
Right.
And sugar can find its way into a lot of things.
How is sugar used in today's world?
How?
Sugar does a lot more, Bryce, than just taste sweet.
It can also stop food from going off.
Salt and sugar work in a similar way to prevent germs from growing in food.
Basically, what they do is they draw water out of the food and then insert sugar or salt molecules where the water used to be.
Now, microbes, they're the things that cause food to spoil.
They need a certain amount of water to survive and grow.
So by adding lots of sugar or salt, you're stopping microbes from growing.
Ah, I see.
Have you ever wondered why fruit doesn't go off when it's turned into jam?
Ah, it's because of the sugar.
Sugar also helps with fermentation.
So if you're making pizza dough or bread, the yeast needs sugars to grow.
And kitchen chemistry just keeps on going with sugar being crucial for making meringues hold their structure, or it helps biscuits get nice and browned on the top.
You know that crunchy deliciousness.
Yeah, lovely.
And in ice cream, sugar reduces the number of ice crystals formed as your ice cream freezes.
So it's nice and creamy.
Wow, well that all makes perfect sense to me.
But at the beginning of this podcast, you said sugar could be used to save lives.
I know I've said before that I'd die for some chocolate, but I wasn't being serious.
Remember I said that sugar draws moisture out of food and stops microbes from growing?
Well, you can actually pour sugar into an open wound like a big nasty cut to stop bacteria growing in it.
Wow.
In parts of the world where people can't afford antibiotics, both sugar and honey have been used to treat wounds.
And that's not all that sugar might be able to do.
Last year, some scientists discovered a way to turn sugar into the hydrocarbons that are found in a car's petrol.
What?
So it might actually be possible one day to power cars on sugar.
Mmm, what a delicious smelling exhaust that would be.
Ooh, yes.
Now, speaking of delicious Amanda, I think it's time to talk about where we can go in the world to eat some wacky, shillery treats.
Where?
Let's spin the globe, Bryce.
We're going to start in...
Russia.
Oh, duh, duh.
Where it's possible that two rights have made a very big wrong.
Okay.
So lobster, delicious.
Yeah, lobster good.
Lollies, delicious.
Yum, yeah.
Lobster-flavoured lollies.
Oh, no.
Although if we just swim across to Japan, we can also have squid-flavoured lollies.
Oh, no thanks.
Most of them don't contain actual squid. but they're made instead with fish paste and sugar.
That's an acquired taste.
Now, Koreans love a treat called nurungji, which is made from and tastes like burnt rice.
And in Israel, there's a beloved treat called bamba.
Now, they look a lot like cheese twisties to me, but they're actually sweet.
They're kind of like peanut butter.
Right.
Okay.
I could get my head around that.
Right.
Now, all through Southeast Asia you can find lollies made with durian and ice cream and all kinds of sweet treats.
Oh.
Now, durian is an Indonesian fruit with a very spiky shell.
Yeah.
And what's a polite way of saying this?
A stink fest.
A very strong odour.
So most hotel rooms in Asia have a sign on the door to make it very clear that you are not allowed to eat durian in your hotel room.
That's how much it stinks.
It reminds me a little bit of how my brother's feet smelled when we were teenagers.
Ew.
Now apparently, the lollies taste like a combo of pineapple, coconut and caramel, which sounds delicious, but I just don't think I can get past the smell and the thought of those cheesy feet.
Ew.
Our friends in America also have some pretty bizarre candy, which is their word for lollies and chocolates, don't they?
Oh, yes.
So I don't know if you remember this from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Bryce, where there was the three course dinner chewing gum.
Oh, yes.
Yes, I do.
So America has Thanksgiving gumballs that apparently contain a three course meal in every tin.
Thanksgiving, of course, is the November holiday in America, where people get together for a huge meal to celebrate a successful harvest.
The gumballs are flavoured as turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, respectively.
Although there is a different brand in America that has a bag of lollies with flavours like roasted turkey, green beans stuffing ginger, glazed carrots, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pie.
Oh dear.
And, of course, a little further south, Mexico has something called salsaguete.
Named and shaped like spaghetti noodles, they have a texture similar to licorice, but a fruitier flavour.
And they're coated in chilli powder to give it that salsa kick.
Yay, yay, yay.
Speaking of spicy, there's a lollipop that you have to be over 18 to buy because it is so crazy hot.
There's a way of measuring spiciness that's called Scovilles.
Oh, yeah.
Now, a jalapeno pepper has around 2,500 Scoville heat units.
Now, a Thai bird's eye chilli, those little ones, has around 75,000.
A police officer's pepper spray has up to 3 million Scoville people.
This lollipop rice has 9 million.
No.
Thank you.
Finally, there are some sugary treats that taste just fine but look horrible.
Oh, my goodness.
I couldn't believe it when I found these.
So, Bryce, I give you the sour flush.
You are going to dip a lollipop plunger into a plastic toilet bowl that is full of sweet and sour powder.
Or you could instead have crime scene candy tubes.
So they are sealed plastic tubes and they're labelled as if they're filled with saliva, blood and urine, which is the fancy word for wee samples.
Now, actually they're just apple, raspberry and lemonade syrups, but you have to get your head around putting saliva, blood and urine labelled things in your mouth.
Revolting.
Now, there's also a thing called the box of boogers.
Oh no.
Squishy green gummies that look just like something you found in your nose.
Oh that's disgusting.
Now, the flavours are snotter melon, sour green boogie and lemon loogie.
Oh, dear.
Now, Amanda, what is wrong with a nice bag of mixed lollies, for goodness sake?
You know, funnily enough, the humble musk stick, which I don't know about you.
That was always in my bag of mixed lollies as a kid.
Yes, definitely.
That makes it onto a lot of these international lists on the internet of weird lollies.
Oh, really?
So I guess it is worth remembering that what we might find normal, others might find strange, and vice versa.
Yeah, no, that's absolutely true.
But having said that, there's no way I'm ever eating a lobster lolly.
Yeah, fair enough.
Time for the quiz.
This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you've been listening.
Question number one, what do Scovilles measure?
Yeah, that's right.
They measure spicy heat.
Question number two.
Which two common white crystal substances are used to preserve food?
Obviously sugar, but also salt.
Question number three.
What's the name of the Indonesian fruit that is very, very stinky?
Hmm.
It's a durian.
That's all we have time for today.
Thanks for joining us as we explored the who, what, how, where, when and why of sugar.
Now get out there and have a most excellent day.
Over and out.
