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Special Exhibit May 26 - September 3, 2007
Science Never Tasted So Sweet!
Bring your taste buds to The Health Museum this summer and explore some sweet science!
Jelly Belly® presents CANDY UNWRAPPED reveals the science of sweets by exploring the biology, chemistry, physiology and psychology of candy. Created by the innovative Ybrick/Design3D design firm in collaboration with the Ontario Science Centre, Jelly Belly® presents CANDY UNWRAPPED is an exciting exhibition that opens in the Sue Trammell Whitfield Gallery at The Health Museum on May 26 and runs through Labor Day on September 3 - making it a very sweet summer! Through the generous support of Jelly Belly® Candy Company of Fairfield, California, the exhibition is making a four-year tour to 12 cities. Presented in Houston by H-E-B, Jelly Belly® presents CANDY UNWRAPPED takes families on an interactive journey into the world of sweets and sours.
Exhibit stations include: Pucker Up: Can you handle the challenge? Taste a super sour candy in front of a camera and watch your face appear on the big screen as you pucker up. After your super sour experience learn why we make funny faces when eating sour foods or candies.
 Taste Bud Tango: Jump on the oh-so cushy giant tongue and learn about taste buds, where they exist, the incredible sensory complexity of the human tongue, and the different types of taste receptors that allow different taste experiences.
 Romancing the Bean: Is chocolate an aphrodisiac? Enter the boudoir and learn about the cultural legacy and chemical properties of chocolate that give it its reputation. Take a quiz to find out whether chocolate makes you feel romantic.
 Delectable Delights: Would you eat a fried flying ant, a tarantula with wax moth larvae or a silkworm pupae? These foods might make some people cringe at the thought of eating them - but to others they are yummy treats. Learn which insect might actually tantalize your taste buds when you discover that some of these treats taste like the more common scrambled eggs and bacon or a peanut butter sandwich.
 Energy Burn: Jump on the energy burn bike and peddle away for one minute to determine how much of a sugar cube and how many calories you can burn off in one minute. Learn about the way your body creates and uses energy and which types of food energy work best for your body.
 Crystal Mountain: Climb along the Crystal Mountain to get a feel for what giant sugar crystals might be like. Learn how rock candy is like diamonds and how crystal molecules form.
 A Bar is Born: Take a history lesson on chocolate. Learn how chocolate evolved from the 1500s into what it is today, the difference between Cocao vs. Cocoa and who the patron of chocolate is. Extreme: When you hear Torture Scorchers, Mega Warheads, Viper Venom and Toe Jam do you think "YUM" or "Yikes"? Extreme will allow visitors to visit the past and present of the ultimate in extreme candies from the 40's to the 90s. See how candy companies continue to push the envelope in trying to out-gross, out-gore, out-shock and out-sour each other to find the ultimate extreme candy!
 It's a Tasty World: Learn about the sweet stories from around the globe! Discover the stories behind 12 countries to learn how wonderfully different tastes can be and why these candies are so popular in their respective countries.
 It's a Wrap: Do you have what it takes to design a product? Sit down and test out your creativity, use bold colours, think of a cool name for your product and let your imagination go wild.
 Sweet Memories: Take a walk down memory lane…….Take in various smells and discover what memory it evokes. Share your memories with other visitors and find out why smell is the strongest trigger for emotional memory.
 Sugar Stack: How much sugar does an average Canadian vs American use in a lifetime? Explore various products where sugar comes from: refined sugar, sugar substitutes and natural sources of sugar.
 The Doctor is in… It's more than just a sweet treat. Both sugar and honey have powerful healing powers. Discover how they can be used to help fight infection.
Who Nose Flavours: Take the Jelly Bean challenge! Experience the difference between taste (message from the tongue) and flavour (message from the tongue and nose).
 Sugar Works: If you think sugar is only found in yummy treats, then you are missing a lot of sweet stuff. Sugar has qualities that are useful in many things that you might use everyday. Visit sugar works and find out what special qualities sugar has and in which products you might find it as an ingredient.
Group Reservations: Want to bring a group to the Museum to see CANDY? Click here for more information about group reservations.
This exhibit is locally presented by:
Jelly B Jelly Belly® presents CANDY UNWRAPPED was produced by the Ontario Science Centre in collaboration with Ybrick/Design 3D Inc. Through the generous support of Jelly Belly Candy Company as US Tour Sponsor, the exhibition is making a four-year tour to 12 cities.
Jelly Belly® is a Reg. TM of Jelly Belly Candy Company, Fairfield CA 94533 USA.
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Candy Trivia:
You need 1 minute, 54 seconds to burn off a sugar cube while cross-country skiing at a speed of 5 miles per hour.
Gummi candies are derived from gelatin. Gelatin is extracted from collagen in the collective tissue of animals - mostly pigs and cows. What parts? Their bones and skin. YUM!
Salt is important in processed meat products because it acts as a preservative. But sugar products are needed to counteract the salt's harshness and balance the taste.
Each taste bud has anywhere from 50-150 taste receptors that are sensitive to certain chemicals. So if these chemicals are dissolved in your mouth, off goes a signal to the brain. And your brain decides "Sweet" or "Bitter"!
Sugar is a natural food product, so bacteria seek it out. Putting a little in garbage bags speeds up their breakdown in landfill sites.
What are some puckering ingredients? Citric acid gives you a short, quick shot of sour up front, malic acid gives you a lingering sour, and funaric acid hangs in with the longest sour.
Flavor is a mix of taste, smell and sensations like hot or cold from the tongue and mouth. You have 10-20 million smell receptors that detect the smells that contribute to flavour. All these sensations tell our brains that an orange is definitely not an apple.
Honey has an amazing doctor's bag of healing ingredients. It contains glucose oxidase, a substance that produces hydrogen peroxide, which kills bacteria chemically. Another skin healing substance in honey is propolis - something that bees make to fix their hive. So scars don't have a chance.
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