What is Cheetos cheese dust? And 18 other junk food mysteries solved

Ah, the age-old question from one of the most popular candy commercials of all time (and the longest-running commercial, ever). You can stop licking: Tootsie has gotten to the bottom of just how many licks it takes to get the to chewy, chocolatey center of a Tootsie Pop. Purdue University’s licking machine (yes, that’s a thing) determined the answer to be 364, but volunteer student researchers averaged 252 licks. So what’s the most accurate answer? The world may never know.

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Tribune Content Agency

Feb. 18, 2019 12 PM PT

Think back to the last time you drank a soda, say, Mountain Dew or Dr Pepper. What was its flavor, exactly? Turns out that Mountain Dew is mostly flavored with orange juice, and Dr Pepper’s formula is a lot more complex than you might think, although still something of a mystery. Junk food may be delicious, but it’s anything but cut-and-dry. In fact, many of the junk foods we take for granted are pretty enigmatic.

There are a lot of mysteries surrounding our favorite snacks, sweets and sodas. So we took stock of all our favorite guilty pleasure foods and dove into the mysteries behind them. Why do Pop Rocks explode in your mouth? Why are Girl Scout Cookies called Samoas in some places and Caramel deLites in others? What is Cheetos cheese dust? Wonder no more, because we have all the answers to food questions you didn’t know you were asking.