There is a popular question that comes from an iconic candy commercial: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center in a Tootsie Pop? If you’re an owl, the answer is three licks before you get impatient and just chomp your way through the sucker. But for years, people have wondered how many licks it takes for a human to lick to the center! And today, I hope to bring the answer to your attention….and then take it a step, or several, further.
Unlike my last two articles (Paper Airplanes and Wood Chucking Woodchucks), I don’t have to go to extreme lengths to find the answer to the question! In fact, there have been several studies by actual universities and public schools that have tried to find the answer to the delicious question.
And the answer is...around 187 licks per pop!
Article finished? Is that it? Am I done already?
Of course I’m not! We have to blow the question out of proportion!
What if we licked through every Tootsie Pop that was made in one day? How many licks would that take?
Let’s run with that question and take it even further!
First off, how did I come up with the number 187 licks?
On a page on the official Tootsie website, they list several studies that have been conducted to find the number of licks it takes (Tootsie Roll Industries, 2021). Below are the condensed results in the number of licks to get to the center:
364 (Purdue, machine), 252 (Purdue, human), 411 (Uni. Michigan, machine), 187 (Bellarmine Uni., Male), 164 (Bellarmine Uni. Female), 144 licks (Swathmore JHS, human).
Machine? Yup. Two actual universities that have actual students with actual professors created an automatic licking machine that imitates an actual human tongue. The thought of this causes me to involuntarily shiver.
If we look at the results, they’re kind of all over the place! There is a difference of 267 licks between the least amount of licks to the most amount of licks! But if you look at it a bit closer, you notice that the horrific-sounding licking machines had the two highest results by a significant margin. Obviously, these machines didn’t replicate the human tongue very accurately. So if we ignore the machine’s numbers, and find the average of all of the human results, we get 187 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop!
252+187+164+144=747 747/4≈187
Let’s go further.
How many Tootsie Pops are made in one day?
20 million (Snack History, n.d.). That’s a lot (citation needed).
How many licks would it take to get to the center of every one of those Tootsie Pops?
Let’s say we gave 20 million people one Tootsie Pop each and asked them to lick to the center. Taking our average of 187 licks from above, that would be 3,740,000,000 total licks!
20,000,000 x 187 = 3,740,000,000
Let’s go even further.
What if we wanted to waste the least amount of candy as possible?
If we combined each half piece into one full Tootsie Pop, and we kept going until we didn’t have any candy left to lick, how many licks would that take? Well, if we kept to the rule that you could only lick through half of the pop and then combine it with another half, about 7,479,999,847.
Round one: 20,000,000/2=10,000,000 3,740,000,000 licks
Round two: 10,000,000/2=5,000,000 1,870,000,000 licks
Round three: 5,000,000/2=2,500,000 935,000,000 licks
Round four: 2,500,000/2=1,250,000 467,500,000 licks
Round five: 1,250,000/2=625,000 233,750,000 licks
Round six: 625,000/2=312,500 116,875,000 licks
Round seven: 312,500/2=156,250 58,437,500 licks
Round eight: 156,250/2=78,125 29,218,750 licks
Round nine: 78,125/2=39,062.5 14,609,275 licks
Round ten: 39,062.5/2=19,531* 7,304,781 licks
Round eleven: 19,531/2=9,765.5 3,652,297 licks
Round twelve: 9765.5/2=4,882.5* 1,826,149 licks**
Round thirteen: 4,882.5/2=2,441* 913,075 licks**
Round fourteen: 2,441/2=1220.5 456,538 licks**
Round fifteen: 1220.5/2=610* 228,269 licks
Round sixteen: 610/2=305 114,135 licks**
Round seventeen: 305/2=152.5 57,068 licks**
Round eighteen: 152.5/2=76* 28,534 licks
Round nineteen: 76/2=38 14,267 licks
Round twenty: 38/2=19 7,134 licks**
Round twenty-one: 19/2=9.5 3,567 licks
Round twenty-two: 9.5/2=5* 1,784 licks**
Round twenty-three: 5/2=2.5 892 licks
Round twenty-four: 2.5/2=1* 468 licks**
Round twenty-five: 1/2=.5 187 licks
Final Round: final half of a Tootsie Pop 187 licks
Rounds: twenty-six total number of licks: 7,479,999,847
*rounded to the nearest half-pop
**rounded to the nearest whole lick
Now I could have just taken the number 3,740,000,000 and multiplied it by two and it would’ve given me pretty much the same answer, but then I wouldn't have made that beautiful looking table!
So in order to not waste any part of all of the Tootsie Pops manufactured in one day, it would take around 7.48 billion licks!
But let’s go even further.
What if one person did all of that licking? How many calories is that and how long would it take to burn that off?
First off, may the Lord have mercy on that person’s tongue.
Secondly, each Tootsie Pop is 60 calories (CVS Pharmacy, 2021). So if this poor soul could somehow consume all 20 million Tootsie Pops, he would take in 1.2 billion calories.
That’s a lot(citation needed).
And if a person burns an average of 100 calories for every mile they run (Healthline, 2019), they would have to run 12 million miles to burn off the calories consumed.
That’s 458,015 marathons.
Or running the circumference of the Earth 482 times.
Or jogging to the Moon and back 25 times.
And if it was possible to literally jog to the moon, then I probably wouldn’t be here writing these ridiculous articles.
Stay Salty.
Bibliography
CVS Pharmacy. (2021). Tootsie Roll Pops Assorted Flavors Ingredients. CVS. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://www.cvs.com/shop/ingredients/tootsie-roll-pops-assorted-flavors-prodid-616086
Healthline. (2019, June 13). How many calories do you burn running a mile? Healthline. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/running-burn-calories-per-mile
Snack History. (n.d.). Tootsie Pops. Snack History. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://www.snackhistory.com/tootsie-pops
Tootsie Roll Industries. (2021). Scientific Endeavors: Tootsie Gallery: How Many Licks Does It Take? Tootsie. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://tootsie.com/howmanylick-experiments
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