Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: William A. Mitchell: Food Inventor

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

William A. Mitchell invented some iconic snack foods and candies. Learn all about him today!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart podcast. We love learning about this extraordinary universe. And we love sharing what we've learned. And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe. That's what we're going to do. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary. I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites. And there's just endless things about this universe that I find fascinating.

Basically, we're both nerds. Each Tuesday and Thursday, we take an hour long dive into some science topic. Hey and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, Jerry's here for Dave, and this is Short Stuff. We're talking about one of the greatest Americans to ever trace this earth. That's right. A food scientist named William A. Mitchell, who was a research chemist for 35 years at General Foods. And this is a great guy, he seems like it. There was an interview with a guy named Marv Rudolph who worked with Mitchell that said he just knew how to amplify flavors in food, he knew what colors to make something to make it more attractive. And if you had a problem, he was a guy to go to, he could figure it out.

The other great thing was, and this is also from the same interview, is they tried to promote him at General Foods to management many, many times, but he didn't want to do that. He was a lab guy and wanted to stay in the lab. Yes. And that is the sign of a true artiste. Yeah. Because I think we talked about in our Peter Principle episode, appropriately enough, because that's what we're talking about here, you can very easily get raised, I guess. Promoted. Promoted.

Thank you. Out of your field of expertise, and suddenly you're a manager, and not everybody's a manager, we can tell you for sure. Yeah, I've done that job. I'm okay at it. I don't love it. I'm terrible at it.

Just screaming, pounding my fists on desks. It doesn't work. But Mitchell, and we'll get to the things he invented after this, maybe because that'll be a nice little teaser, but he has more than 70 food patents that he invented from 1941 to 1976. But this is a guy that was born to very, very hard work in a Minnesota farm family, or to a Minnesota farm family in 1911, isn't that right? Yeah, because his dad died while he was in elementary school. Although I suspect if you're born to a Minnesota farm family in 1911,

you're gonna work regardless. But I think the pressure was on William Mitchell even more than the average Minnesota farm child born in 1911 because of his father's death. So Bill Mitchell had to harvest peas and beans for other farmers to help supplement the income of their family. By the time he was a teenager, the family

was living in Colorado. He was trapping muskrat and I guess selling them at the local muskrat market and harvesting melons for other farmers too. So he did a lot of work that probably the average person didn't. But he also worked his way through college too, I guess, as a carpenter. Yeah, before that though, he got a job that would kind of come in handy later on as a food scientist because he worked the overnight shift at the sugar crystallization tank room

for the American beet sugar company. So that work with sugar just sort of put a pin in that because that'll come back. Yeah, you can kind of imagine that's probably where he started to develop his love of food science, right? I mean, I don't know. One can only guess, but I mean, he was around all that sugar.

Yeah, really hyped him up. Well, I say that because pretty early on, after he graduated with a master's degree in chemistry, he went into research chemistry with a, I guess, a lean toward food, because it was at the agricultural experiment station in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm guessing he worked a lot with corn. And so that was his first career, was essentially in food science, or he started working with food as a scientist. How so that was his first career was essentially in food science or he started

working with food as a scientist. How about that? Yeah, for sure. And as you will see, he was not a person to be deterred because not long after he started that job, there was a pretty bad explosion from heating a cracked beaker with alcohol in it. And he got second and third degree burns over 80% of his body, took some time off to recover a few months, and then that is when he landed his job and moved to White Plains, New York with the General Foods, excuse me, more than one food corporation. Don't say it. Don't say any names yet.

I won't. Okay, because we're going to take a break real quick, and we're going to come back and talk about some of the great things that Bill Mitchell did with his life later after this. Giving yourself that agency to not just be one thing, right? I don't have to be the perception that is crafted or the version of me that everyone is kind of projecting onto me. Like I am having my human experience and it is faceted. It's so faceted and it's fascinating. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Deeply Well is a sanctuary for your healing. I'm Debbie

Brown, healer, wellbeing expert, teacher, and fellow seeker. And each week we explore what it means to become whole through soul expanding conversations and practices. Why focus on tiny joys? Well, because they remind us of what it means to be human. They anchor us in the present moment and they create ripples of gratitude that nourish our spirit. Tiny joys are acts of self-love.

To hear this and more ways to prioritize your peace, listen to Deeply Well from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Hi, I'm Radhida Vlukya and I am the host of a Really Good Cry podcast and I had the opportunity to talk to Davy Brown. Davy Brown is one of the most sought after wellness educators and through her signature blend of advanced meditation, breathwork, metaphysical physiology, spiritual psychology and holistic trauma informed facilitation, Davy has touched the lives of countless students,

including renowned artists, athletes and executives of global corporations. But anything can be used as a tool of avoidance. With women, any kind of thing where there might be this underlying edge of self-sacrifice as martyrdom, if you're never filling, you're telling yourself a story and you're actually avoiding what you should be doing. Your life at the end of it is still going to be a sum of your experiences. And so you got to get in, you got to get your hands dirty. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. So Chuck, we talked about Bill Mitchell being an amazing person. One of the reasons why is because he developed some of the best foods that came out of the 20th century. Not the best for you foods, but the best. Yeah, I wondered after I did this research, I was like, man, are we going to get people writing in because we're like celebrating this guy for creating junk food? Well, they just can soak their heads. Great. I like that term. That's a nice way to say other things. So one of the first things was in 1957, he was like, how about a powdered drink that tastes sort of like, sort of citrusy and people might

think it's good for you. But it's 98% sugar. Yeah, it is primarily sugar. Got a little bit of vitamin C in there. And those flavor crystals happening. And you're going to mix that together with water, and you're going to get a bright, very bright, almost unsettlingly bright orange color tangerine color drink, and it's called Tang. Yeah. And you said flavor crystals. That was a big one because William Mitchell was known in the food science industries

the master of disaster. And then in parentheses they would put disaster being flavor crystals. They just couldn't find anything that rhymed with it. Yeah, yeah. Tang wasn't a big hit right away though. It took a little while to catch on, but one of the big things that helped, you know, helped launch it, I guess pun intended, was when it went into outer space. In 1962, it was on board John Glenn's Mercury spaceflight, because he was like, man, we're storing this drinking water in metal cans and metal vats, and it tastes gross.

So he's like, just throw some Tang powder in there and you're all good. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, this was the time when America was just totally fascinated with space. You know, you could have put an old leather boot in space and sold it as Tang and people would have drank it. So you talked about John Glenn saying it was gross to drink metallic water. Later on, Buzz Aldrin said Tang is gross. As a matter of fact, he said Tang sucks. And he said it while he was doing the most 2013 thing you could possibly be doing. He was presenting a Spike TV Guys' Choice Award to Felix Baumgartner.

I would see the parachute guy. Yeah. Yeah, that jumped from space. Yeah. Yeah, sponsored by Red Bull probably. Yeah, and I don't know how it came up. I didn't see the clip, but that was what made the rounds in the media. Tang sucks, end quotes.

Oh, good for you, Buzz. Speaking of being sponsored, though, by the time Apollo 8 rolled around, Tang was such a thing for space flights that the televised event was sponsored by Tang. They were like, we got to get in on this thing. Did you drink Tang when you were a kid? A little bit, but we, I drank a lot of water. My mom was, you know, we couldn't afford a lot of stuff, even though Tang was like super cheap. And I think my mom also didn't want us just having a ton of junk. It wasn't like super health food family or anything,

but it was just one of the things like, I'm not gonna waste my money on that garbage. I guess you probably didn't drink Kool-Aid either. A little bit here and there. Those were treats I usually got at other kids' houses. Yeah, Kool-Aid was the best. Did you just drink all that stuff? I drank so much Kool-Aid was the best. Did you just drink all that stuff? I drank so much Kool-Aid.

Cherry, lime was really good. Grape was probably the best. Oh my God. Good freezer pops too. Yes, but if you ever made it, Chuck, you would put the Kool-Aid powder in a pitcher and it would be like a couple tablespoons maybe? Tops?

And then you would pour literal cups of sugar on top of it. Add water, stir, and just thank me later. Yeah, eight kool-aid. It was nuts. Like looking back, it was insane that that's what kids drank. Pretty great, God bless the 70s. Bill Mitchell was trying to solve a lot of problems often

when he came up with these inventions for food. Try to save people time in the kitchen at the time, you know, trying to save moms time in the kitchen. And in 1967, he was like, Jell-O takes way too long to make because you have to use this hot water, boiling water to dissolve that stuff. So he came up with a, and got a patent for a quick set form of Jell-O using cold water. He was like, look at that everybody. Presto change-o, you got cold Jell-O in no time flat. No time flat. So what's interesting is Jell-O is very famous for making some really weird, being a part of some really weird mid-century recipes.

So Bill Mitchell had his hand in Jell-O. He also had his hand in another ingredient, some really weird recipes from mid-century, which was Cool Whip, which was, and still is, almost totally artificial whipped cream. It's made with water, hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, and then skim milk. And the skim milk is a modern addition. There used to be nothing that was a milk product in Cool Whip, which meant you could freeze it, which was a huge boon to general foods, right? Yeah, but I think you missed one ingredient. Love?

The hand of God. So you're a Cool Whip dude, huh? I mean, we don't get it because it's just, you know, it's garbage. But, you know, when we pumpkin pie and pecan pie and stuff like that around Thanksgiving and Christmas, we will get Cool Whip. I don't like the shake a can, Ready Whip stuff. We're a Cool Whip family, and it does not last long on our house

because it just gets eaten out of the container with a spoon by all three of us. Same with Ready Whip though. You just turn it up and spray it right in your mouth, and then when it's out, it gives you a pretty good buzz. Yeah, but I like that Cool Whip better. I like the taste. Yeah, I'm with you.

I like it frozen, too. I like it both ways, but it's really good frozen as well. Yeah. I think I told you before, Cool Whip. Yeah, we talked about this. Cool Whip and peanut butter. It's a dangerous combination. Oh, I still didn't try that.

I forgot. I'll have to try that this Thanksgiving. You know, you probably just shouldn't. I don't think you should. It's like, you might as well have just said, I think I'll start smoking cigarettes. Yeah, that's a good point. So the granddaddy of them all, Bill Mitchell,

had a hand in, in that he kind of laid the groundwork for the product to come. But back in 1956, William Mitchell was trying to figure out ways to carbonate Kool-Aid to basically create instant soda. And he was like, let me just figure out how to add carbon dioxide to flavor crystals because again, he was the flavor crystal king.

And I guess he did enough so that like he created a legacy process of adding CO2 to flavor crystals. It just wasn't creating the soda that he was looking for. So he shelved it and then somebody else came along and picked it up, right? Yeah, 20 years later somebody else tweaked it just a bit and thankfully the world, the United States, and the world over got Pop Rocks. Yeah. Can you describe Pop Rocks if people

don't know what those are? Oh, they're little, very tiny candy on the, kind of like this size and shape of nerds. And if you don't know what nerds are, we're just totally lost here. Right. Not quite as coated if they are at all, but when they touch your tongue, that

CO2 that's inside just like starts to get released and it makes the candy crackle. So not only does it make a cool sound, a fizzing sound just like the top of like when you pour a sprite. Like you can feel it on your tongue too. It's very delightful. Yeah. So I mean, the idea was you would take a scoop of this and add water, so in this case the water is just your saliva and the moisture from your mouth and your tongue. Yeah.

And I gave Ruby some, when she was like four or five, I was like, you've never had Pop Rocks, kiddo, you gotta try this out. And she was, it was sort of one of those great mind-blowing moments as a parent. She'd like more. No, not really, she's not one of those kids that, it's sort of one of those great mind-blowing moments as a parent. She's like, more. No, not really. She's not one of those kids that it's weird.

She loves the thing, but maybe it's the ADHD. She kind of forgets about it after that. Usually ADHD laser focuses on something like a big sugar rush. So she's fortunate. Yeah. So there was a myth, I think some people probably still believe this

if they've heard it, Chuck, that if you drink soda and pop rocks, eat pop rocks at the same time, you're at risk of blowing your stomach up from all of the carbon dioxide. And that is just not true. But it was persistent enough that General Foods had to take out a full page ad back in the 70s.

And I looked it up. It's an open letter to parents talking about Pop Rocks and how it's safe. And it was written by Bill Mitchell. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So they trotted him out, and they were like, tell everybody, Bill, because we don't understand how they work.

You explain it. Yeah, they stood next to him with a knife gently pressed into the side of his neck. Yeah. So we salute you, William A. Mitchell. He retired from General Foods in 1976. Tried to find out some dirt on this guy, but he seems like just a pretty great person. He was a father of seven.

He's married for 60 years. And when he passed away in 2004, his obituary said he was devoted, stimulating, and loving parent, and made a pretty big impact on, you know, the diet of American kids. Yeah, we should say one of those seven children is Cheryl Mitchell, his daughter. She became a food scientist as well, followed in her father's footsteps. And if you like Rice Dream, you can thank Cheryl Mitchell or Elmhurst Nut Grain and Seed Milk.

You can thank her as well. And she's known as a quote, world authority on sweeteners, rice processing and the extraction and metabolism of Inulin. Parentheses, but not flavor crystals. Yeah, that was her dad's jam. Yeah, I love the legacy continues though, pretty cool. Same here.

All right, well thank you and thank you for signing off as a salute to William Mitchell too, Chuck. I appreciate it. And I think that also means short stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.