10 weird facts about marshmallows

Around 2,000 years ago, marshmallows looked very different. In Ancient Egypt, sap was extracted from the mallow plant and mixed with nuts and honey. These proto-marshmallows were delicacies reserved for pharaohs, nobility, and gods.

The more moldable, puffy marshmallows that we're now familiar with have their origins in France. In the 1800s, French confectioners whipped marshmallow with egg whites and sweetener to create spongy marshmallows, which were a huge hit with customers—even before toasting them was a thing.

Or at least a Girl Scout handbook is where the first s'mores recipe appeared in 1927. The publication where the recipe first appeared was called Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts.

Besides being used to make marshmallows, the sap of the mallow plant is also used to soothe sore throats and as an anti-inflammatory. Of course, there's not a lot of mallow in most modern marshmallows, so you might have to eat a whole bag to reap the benefits! The sacrifices we make for our health...

Well, in Japan. For a limited time only. But rumor has it that lots of people actually enjoy marshmallows on pizza. The Pizza Hut version was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Morinaga Milk, makers of milk products and many milky desserts. The Morinaga Milk Caramel and marshmallow pizza was also topped with slivered almonds and had a cheese-stuffed crust. Delicious?

Being marshmallow capital of the world comes with great responsibility. Each year, Ligonier holds a parade, "marshmallow games," a pizza eating contest (presumably with marshmallowy toppings), a bed race, and many, many more events. Clearly, this town has a ton of marshmallow spirit.

We have yet to meet anyone with this particular ailment, but if we do, at least we know what to call it.

Marshmallows actually help protect astronauts' nasal linings during high-pressure liftoffs, making "astronaut" the only serious, high-pressure job that involves putting candy up your nose.

Because of the small air bubbles in marshmallows, they actually inflate when you put them in a vacuum. Science! There's a video that explains the phenomenon here: physics.org.

Apparently, General Mills, the company that produces Lucky Charms, has been receiving requests for a no-cereal version of their cereal for years. So in 2015 they released a Marshmallow-only version, but with a catch: there were only 10 boxes. Marshmallow fans had to enter a contest to win—that is, except Kylie Jenner, the reality star who famously loved Lucky Charms Marshmallows. When the custom "cereal" was released, General Mills sent her a box of her very own.