Glonuts: the donuts that glow in the dark have already become a mania

A donut that looks ordinary, the difference reveals itself in the dark: it glows. No, it is not radioactive, its simple formula has conquered fans. Introducing the Glonuts!

The glonuts were created in the Black Star Pastry, from Australia. Although it looks radioactive, it has none of that, the secret is the coverage of yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit with vitamin B. Vitamin B has the property of fluorescence in the wavelength of black light, so they added a vitamin supplement B to the recipe.

The inspiration came at the Vivid Festival, where the confectioner participated in 2016. He envisioned a way to “use the lights of the event on food.” After a few months of testing, the formula was set to debut at this year’s festival.

Vitamin B is safe for consumption and there are few symptoms of overdosage. Although I am not a nutritionist, I have my reservations regarding the recipes with added vitamins. An industrialized product, which goes through analyzes of the amount of nutrients made in the laboratory, is different from a recipe manually made by a pastry, without certainty when it comes to safety dosage.

This is not the first food that glows in the dark, in 2014 the British ice cream shop “Lick me I’m Delicious” launched a bioluminescent ice cream made with jellyfish protein. No jellyfish were sacrificed in the process, a Chinese scientist replicated the protein in the laboratory. Each dessert scoop was sold for $ 225!

Right: jellyfish – Left: ice cream made with jellyfish protein

The Australian Ice Cream shop 196 Below also makes ice cream that glows in the dark, but they use a food-grade fluorescent dye.

Considering humans also “eat with their eyes”, the visual aspect of the product is very important. Consumer is still afraid of food that shines because it looks poisonous or radioactive, but if the industry is able to develop safe ingredients for that purpose, I think we will soon have a lot more brilliant choices at parties, nightclubs and bars.

It is easy to find your food in the party now!

References: Kombini, Fine Dining Lovers, Bravo TV, Huffington Post, IFL Science, Daily Mail, Study on excitation and fluorescence spectrums of Japanese citruses to construct machine vision systems for acquiring fluorescent images, Investigation of Excitation Wavelength for Fluorescence Emission of Citrus Peels based on UV-VIS Spectra