In the interests of science, I just ran to the vending machine.
Preliminary findings, after eating one chew of each color:
Yellow was the hardest, followed by
Orange, Red and Pink.
It was a tough choice between Yellow and Orange for the title of hardest, so I let myself be swayed by the findings of others. It’s true. Scientfic objectivity really is a sham!
I still hate the red ones.
This is the hardest pkg of starburst I have EVER had. They are truly awful and stale. And I saw the guy filling the machine 2 days ago!
I wonder if the yellow go stale faster for some reason. They were all stale, but some worse than others.
I gave some to the boyfriend. His results are now in: the hardest was either yellow or red.
Foolsguinea: interesting theory, as my first reaction to the question was, "He’s right, I think they are harder. . . " I live in Oregon. Hmm…
Are they all flavored with citric acid? perhaps if only the yellow ones have as much, the acidity couses a curdling effect of the plasticine, gum-arabic, or whatever the ‘neutral’ substance is?
If your boyfriend ever loses interest in you or shuns you for your skittles-sorting prowess, come sort some with me. I eat mine in pairs. Green goes best with Purple. Yellow goes best with Orange but Red is okay in a pinch. Red can go with grape, but is best with Orange. Yellow and Green are okay, but Green can only go with Yellow or Purple, no other colors (well, except for another green). That’s my Skittles Organization Chart.
It might be a good hypothosis… however… .
I know someone who lives in Boston… and she’s the one that told me that the yellow ones were harder… perhaps only two states?? farthest from the factory?
I, too, eat them in pairs.
My favorite combination is Red with Purple.
Orange goes with Yellow, or with Red, but mostly my Reds are all tied up with the Purples.
Yellow can go with Green, but Green must never go with Orange or Red.
I get some weird looks at work when people walk by my desk and I have rows of pairs of Skittles. Sometimes people take some but I try to restrict them to the Green-Yellow and Green-Green pairs.
Well, sorry Ogre, to disappoint you, but we’ve really opened a can of worms with the Skittles thing. Perhaps it needs a thread of its own. I’m afraid if we take our Skittles elsewhere, though, your Starburst thread will fail to thrive. As for you, Motorgirl, you don’t know what you’re missing if you’re not eating your greens with your purples.
But just to make you happy, I think it’s purely psychological that you believe yellows are harder than other starburst colors. Methinks you got a stale yellow one day and just happened to notice it. Suddenly all the yellows seem stale and even a normally-soft yellow one will take on fiberboard characteristics. Not what you wanted to hear, though, is it?
Try some new way to get a date, man! Buy her roses and be charming or something!
Hey numb-nuts! If you’re not willing to get off your ass and make some phone calls to the people who know, why should we?
Call, and if you don’t get the truth, ask for the supervisor and if that doesnt work ask for the supervisor’s supervisor. Try different divisions of the same company.
Be tenatious.
ChiefScott
– Unraveller of the “Kiwi Lid Hole Conundrum”
Hypothesis: Yellows are harder becauae they get stale faster.
Causal Mechanism: unknown
Method: I will leave starburst lying on the diningroom table. Each night I will come home and measure the staleness of each color by eating one of each.
I figure by the end of the week I will have discovered something or lost all my starburst under the sofa, bookshelves, refrigerator, etc. I have cats, you see…
I welcome suggestions on how to perfect my methodology. It’s been many years since I had to study the “scientific method” in 10th grade Biology. Oy - 13 years! :eek:
Well, I sent an email to the Starburst people, but apparently including “Is there anything different in the composition of the yellow candies” as part of the question was a mistake, because the full text of the response was
without taking into account that the question went on to ask if there was any other possible explanation (“some of the candies ARE truly harder than others, because of slight unavoidable differences in batches” was one of a few other possible explanations thrown in for them to choose from but that they didn’t deign to consider).
OgreFade: I conducted some scientific research last night. I chomped down on two packs of Starbursts last night.
The hardness does vary from Starburst to Starburst, but it has nothing to do with the color. I chomped into a yellow one that was pretty hard, but I ate orange and cherry ones that were just as hard. If you want to soften the suckers, put a package in your pants pocket for about 10 minutes.
Thats what i want! So… help… its more than htat… the yellows seem to go stale faster.