Japanese scientists have done the impossible by figuring out how to make summers less messy. Scientists at Japan's Biotherapy Development Research Center in Kanazawa City discovered how to make ice cream that does not melt, and if you can believe it, the discovery happened by accident.
The revelation occurred while the Japanese scientists were experimenting with polyphenol, a liquid extracted from strawberries. Never heard of it? That's okay, we hadn't either. Tomihisa Ota, a professor of pharmacy at Kanazawa University, explained to the Asahi Shimbun that "polyphenol liquid has properties to make it difficult for water and oil to separate" and those properties led to the non-melting ice cream.
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According to Mashable, while experimenting with polyphenol, scientists at the research center enlisted help from a pastry chef in Miyagi Prefecture. No matter how much we love dessert, that does seem like an odd person to ask for help in this scientific situation, but the Asahi Shimbun reports that the research center was trying to help strawberry farmers in the area who had been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Specifically, the pastry chef was asked to try and make a brand new dessert using polyphenol from strawberries, but he said that the cream he was using in the dessert kept solidifying when the polyphenol was added. That's how the scientists figured out that polyphenol would make popsicles and ice cream keep their shape. Not too long after this discovery was made, the research center started manufacturing cream-based popsicles, and now they're sold at shops all over the country. While the concept of ice cream that doesn't melt goes against the entire nature of what the dessert is in the first place, we would be lying if we said we didn't see the appeal.
Rocket News confirmed that after three whole hours of being left out in a room temperature space, the ice cream does keep its shape. There's even a video to prove it. If we seen one more fun food innovation come out of Japan, we're packing our suitcases and moving.