All Colors Of Skittles Taste Exactly The Same According To The Scientist

By Sughra Hafeez in Facts and DIY On 21st January 2018
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Skittles is a brand of fruit-flavoured sweets, currently produced and marketed by the Wrigley Company, a division of Mars, Inc.

They have hard sugar shells which carry the letter S. The inside is mainly sugar, corn syrup, and hydrogenated palm kernel oil along with fruit juice, citric acid, and natural and artificial flavors.The confectionery has been sold in a variety of flavor collections, such as Tropical and Wild Berry.

Skittles were first made commercially in 1974 by a British company.

They were first introduced in North America in 1979 as an import confectionery.In 1982, domestic production of Skittles began in the United States.

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Skittles' "taste the rainbow" theme was created by New York ad agency D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles.

Skittles are produced in a wide variety of flavors and colors, including sour varieties.

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A 2011 posting contained confirmation of a new flavor:

"Putting the last touches on a new Skittles flavor. Tweak the Rainbow." In 2013, Skittles replaced the lime-flavored Skittles with green apple, causing a backlash from some consumers. The lime became part of their Darkside packets.

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What’s your favorite Skittles color? Actually, scratch that question, it doesn’t matter. Because it turns out all the Skittles colors taste the same.

According to a report in a journal called BioMed Central entitled On the Psychological Impact of Food Colour, all of the above may be utter bollocks.

In an experiment, Spence took a group of college students and asked them to taste a row of clear beverages in glass bottles.

The beverages had fruit flavorings with one orange, one grape, one apple and one lemon -- and the students aced their task of differentiating between the flavors.

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"While I wouldn't say they went to chance, their ability to tell which was which got really subpar all of the sudden," he told NPR.

"The orange beverage tasted orange [to them]. The yellow beverage tasted like lemonade. There wasn't a thing they could do about it." Basically, the brain is tracking what the mouth is feeling.

When the liquid was clear, the students did a great job at identifying the different flavors.

"But then he added food coloring," Katz said. "The 'wrong' food coloring for the liquid." (For example, the grape-flavored liquid would be colored orange.)

So, Skittles have different fragrances and different colors - but they all taste exactly the same

"The Skittles people, being much smarter than most of us, recognized that it is cheaper to make things smell and look different than it is to make them actually taste different," Katz told NPR.

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Mind = blown.

Furthermore, this study done by the Flavour Journal seems to agree with the idea of sensory cues, stating that, "indeed, color certainly also influence people’s flavor perception in more of a top-down manner as well. Here, it is relevant to note that researchers have demonstrated that labeling, branding, and other descriptive information can all modify the meaning of a given food color and by so doing influence the perceived taste of a food or beverage."

OK, Skittles are evil betrayers of our brains, but...what about gummy bears?

The Vice President of Marketing at Haribo Keith Dannoff reported to NPR that their gummies have 5 different flavors. "I can't speak for all gummy bears products but I can definitely tell you that the HARIBO Gold-Bears gummy bear products in the US contain 5 distinct flavors: Strawberry, Lemon, Orange, Pineapple, and Raspberry," he promised.

That's definitely great news, but what about our skittles? Do we really believe this is legit?

Many have taken to twitter to discuss their thoughts on the Skittles devastation.

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"Oh sure, I bet you want me to believe green and blue M&Ms taste the same too, ya bunch of wackadoos," wrote one user.

Another added: "I just can’t get past it - I’ve tried but I loved the lime flavor - my sister and I used to eat the lemon and lime at the same time and talk about how it tasted like how Pledge smells lmao"

Whether you believe it or not, don't let this shocking realization keep you away from your favorite candy.