 Space Dust
Space Dust is popping candy that changes colour while it explodes on your tongue - for your delight and delectation. And what's more - it comes in loads of awesome flavours including Strawberry, Orange, Cola, Cherry and Tutti Frutti. It's sometimes called Fizz Wiz or Popping Candy these days but it's still the same weird stuff that will make your mouth go mental!
Some of the trendy TV chefs have now started using Space Dust in their desserts - and only recently we supplied James Martin on Saturday Kitchen with a whole load of it! Apparently Gordon Ramsay is also using the stuff.
We've been buying Space Dust from A Quarter Of for some time. They're a brilliant online sweetshop who sells loads of retro-sweets. We like the way they package the sweets and deliver them very quickly.
Pop Rocks or Space Dust?
 Space dust (sometimes called Pop Rocks or Fizz Wiz) is a carbonated candy with ingredients including sugar, lactose (milk sugar), corn syrup, and flavoring. The idea of the product was patented by General Foods research chemist William A. Mitchell in 1956. The Space Dust candy was first offered to the public in 1975. Around 1983, General Foods stopped selling the candy; some would believe this was because of an urban legend. In 1985, Kraft Foods bought the rights to the candy product and re-marketed it as Action Candy through a company called Carbonated Candy.
In 2006, Dr. Marvin Rudolph, who led the group assigned to bring Space Dust out of the laboratory and into the manufacturing plant, wrote the definitive history on Pop Rocks development. The book, titled, "Pop Rocks: The Inside Story of America's Revolutionary Candy, " draws on interviews with food technologists, engineers, marketing managers, and members of Bill Mitchell's family, along with the author's direct experience, to tell the complete story.
In recent years, a Space Dust/Pop Rocks brand chewing gum has been introduced.
Space Dust Exploding Urban Myth
During the product's heyday, rumors persisted that eating Space Dust and drinking cola
would cause a person's stomach to explode. The company spent large sums sending out flyers to debunk the rumor. This is, in part, caused by the false assumption that pop rocks contain an acid/base mixture (such as baking soda and vinegar) which produces large volumes of gas when mixed through chewing and saliva.
The most famous of these myths involved a child named Mikey from the Life cereal commercials. Mikey was reported to have died after eating a Space Dust and cola mixture. The rumour is false and the former child actor who was in the commercials, John Gilchrist, is alive and well.
The TV series MythBusters examined the rumour by mixing Space Dust and cola inside a pig's stomach. The UK television programme Brainiac: Science Abuse later performed a similar debunking using a female volunteer.
The American pop-punk band Green Day wrote a song called "pop-rocks and coke".
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