Melanie, of Sparks from a Combustible Mind, is back again as our host for the Truthful Tuesday prompt. In honor of Halloween month, Melanie wants to know…
How do you feel about candy corn. She says, “Hate it, love it, it’s one of those things seen around a specific time of year and everyone has an opinion one way or another it seems.”
I remember that when I was a kid I used to love candy corn and couldn’t wait until Halloween season when all of the stores had loads of candy corn on their shelves. I’m not sure when, exactly, I grew out of my craving for candy corn, but it’s been decades since I last had any.
Until last year, when my son bought a bunch of individually-sized bags of candy corn to hand out to trick-or-treaters. I was hit with a rush of nostalgia. I said to my son, “I used to love these when I was a kid,” and he tossed me a bag and encouraged me to open it and eat the candy corn.
I put two or three pieces in my mouth and thought, Eww, these are disgusting. So that is how I feel about candy corn now. I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. I just won’t eat it anymore.
Unless someone comes out with cannabis-infused candy corn. Then I might reconsider. In the meantime, I’ll stick with fun-sized Snickers to give to our trick-or-treaters.
This, That, and the Other 
I don’t get trick or treaters here so no excuse to but candy that I shouldn’t be eating. This is the fifth year I have resisted buying it but I still look at it longingly 😜
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Yeah, Snickers are way better than candy corn. I never liked candy corn, but it can be a nifty invention to look at (although I’ve never bought any). I wouldn’t put one in my mouth, as I won’t touch Twinkies. Ew. Someone offered me a Twinkie he had gotten as a thank you somewhere (and he seemed excited). I told him I don’t think I could even take a bite of it and, furthermore, not if my life supposedly depended on it would I eat it; it would likely do more harm than good even then. And I don’t like them anyway. I like eating real corn, always have.
After all that ^ gut reaction, I decided to search whether or not candy corn has hydrogenated oil (something I avoid in things I would otherwise like). There was one item in the list of ingredients that wasn’t netted out or explained, so I looked that up next.
https://tasteforlife.com/living/baby-kids/what-know-about-confectioners-glaze
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[And this, in turn, has reminded me again of what I saw as an odd passing note on a news show, last night, wherein the deliverer said a couple of brothers had made a fortune — on a product to help reverse balding — which was made from an excretion of sheep (she said “I kid you not” sarcastically). I said, I’m pretty sure the secretion is lanolin (an established product in our world). She is among people who have mockingly spoken of scientific items she clearly knows (or they know) little to nothing of (and don’t have time to find out) on other occasions. I might not want to use lanolin on my body, hair, or head (as opposed to on a lamb skin rug), but that doesn’t make the brothers idiotic outliers in our world.]
https://tasteforlife.com/living/baby-kids/what-know-about-confectioners-glaze
What is Confectioner’s Glaze?
Confectioner’s glaze, also known as pharmaceutical glaze, [is] made using shellac, but shellac—or “beetle juice,” as ABC News calls it—is made of bug secretions.
How is Shellac Made? After feeding on tree sap, the female lac bug secretes a substance called lac to protect her soon-to-hatch eggs. Often found and collected in forests of India or Thailand, the lac later hardens to create a flaky shellac. It is then dissolved in ethanol, an alcohol fuel distilled from plant materials. The process leads to the creation of glaze and shellac polish.
Uses for Shellac
While the glaze is used to enhance shine of apples, jelly beans, and other hard foods, shellac-based sprays are also used to coat pills, polish fingernails, and varnish wood.
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Oh… somebody just now reminded me she said “grease” excreted from sheep. Apparently, she (and her crew) couldn’t even get past the first line, or think through the first.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanolin
… also called wool yolk, wool wax, or wool grease, is a wax secreted by the sebaceous glands of wool-bearing animals.[1] Lanolin used by humans comes from domestic sheep breeds that are raised specifically for their wool.
Historically, many pharmacopoeias have referred to lanolin as wool fat (adeps lanae); however, as lanolin lacks glycerides (glycerol esters), it is not a true fat.[2][3]
Lanolin primarily consists of sterol esters instead.[4] Lanolin’s waterproofing property aids sheep in shedding water from their coats.
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I thought I had put that whole segment in italics, thus didn’t think I needed to put
• the Latin for wool fat (adeps lanae) •
in italics. It’s a mislabeling. But that’s not the message about which she was complaining.
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Lanolin’s role in nature is to protect wool and skin from climate and the environment; it also plays a role in skin (integumental) hygiene.[2] Lanolin and its derivatives are used in the protection, treatment and beautification of human skin.[2]
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For the record, something marketed as “essential oil” of jasmine is not (due to some difference between other flowers and jasmine) technically an oil at it’s core.
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I learned more than I expected, here:
https://www.quinessence.com/absolutes
~
How are absolutes made?
In the first stage of the process the plant material is placed in a cylindrical drum along with an organic solvent, usually hexane or toluene.
The drum is rotated to aid the absorption of the solvent and to separate the odiferous extract, and this extract is then subjected to vacuum distillation to remove the solvent which can then be recycled.
The aromatic material obtained after this first process is known as a concrète or resinoid, depending if the extract is waxy or resinous.
Concrètes and resinoids are used in a wide range of industries, but specialist knowledge is required to use them because they are very difficult to work with due to their thick, heavy consistency. This is why concretes and resinoids (with the exception of benzoin) are rarely used in aromatherapy.
The second stage in this process involves using ethanol (alcohol) to separate the aromatic compounds from pigments and waxes, which are usually present in the extracted material if it is derived from a flower or herb. Many of these waxes have little aromatic value and make the oil difficult to use due to their insolubility, although these waxes are useful in skin care products.
After being chilled, the waxes and non-odiferous materials become separated and are removed, the remainder is filtered, and finally the alcohol is recovered using vacuum distillation.
Heavier consistency
When an aromatic oil is extracted this way the oil is referred to as an absolute rather than an essential oil, and its fragrance is far more concentrated than an oil obtained either by steam distillation or cold expression.
Absolutes are often much thicker in consistency than essential oils too, and many need warming to make them mobile enough to pour out. Some absolutes are so viscous that they set completely at the bottom of the container, but simply placing the bottle in warm water for 10 to 15 minutes will get the oil flowing properly.
Closer to nature
When extracted expertly, an absolute will contain far more of the aromatic principles of the flower than its steam distilled counterpart which is why it smells closer to nature. Because of this, many popular herbs and spices such as basil, cardamon, clary sage, clove bud, geranium, ginger, lavender and peppermint are also extracted using this process and are often the preferred choice for manufacturers in some industries.
Because absolutes are so concentrated they usually overpower the untrained nose and need diluting before they once again smell like the herb or flower they were extracted from.
Few aromatherapy students can identify the aroma of undiluted rose absolute when first introduced to it because it completely overwhelms their olfactiry system. Fortunately, the human brain quickly adapts and with practice the aroma soon becomes recognizable.
From a different site:
Jasmine … includes some 300 species of hardy evergreen shrubs or vines growing to a height of 32 feet. Native to Asia and now common around the world as an ornamental plant, jasmine is a large climbing shrub in the olive family that produces small, fragrant white and pink blossoms. The plants are harvested at night to maximize yield, and Jasmine is actually considered an absolute, not an essential oil.
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Eww!
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I love candy corn and treats !!
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I think the ingredients have changed. It tastes fairly weird to me too.
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They do taste a little like wax! Not that I munch on a lot of candles!
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Lol. Your funny. Canibas infused candy corn would be awesome!
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It is kind of like a tradition to have it once a year… this year was the best though. I can’t stomach much of it, it is just TOO sweet, so I was thrilled to find small bags this year so I had just a little for a few days and didn’t have to throw out over half a big bag. My least favorite of the dreaded Halloween candies – circus peanuts, GROSS!
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https://quicksell.co/s/leafy420store/cannabis/af0
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