Eli5: why when you eat too much powdered candies you tongue hurts like burned?
In: Biology
I’m gonna use ‘sweets’ instead of ‘candy’ because I feel like I’m faking an American accent every time I type candy.
Depending on the sweets, it could be for a couple of reasons. The 2 which jump to mind are:
– some powdered sweets cause an endothermic reaction in the mouth, which is where it absorbs energy from the surroundings. This can make your tongue repeatedly lose heat from the top layer which *could* (biology isn’t my area) cause a burning feeling on the tongue.
– less likely but I think some sweets are alkaline (the opposite of acidic) which causes similar effects to what you’d associate with acidic substances like vinegar or salt and vinegar crisps.
Disclaimer: these are educated guesses from me (I have a physics degree and have dabbled in chemistry, someone could come along and correct me!)
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