What Do Pop Rocks, TANG And Cool Whip Have In Common?

We would gladly accept “deliciousness” as your answer. But there’s another major common thread.

Meet our true American hero: William A. Mitchell. Born and raised in Raymond, Minnesota, Mitchell studied hard until finally becoming a food chemist with a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Nebraska. After suffering terrible third-degree burns from a lab accident at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Nebraska, Mitchell was scouted out by a little known company: General Mills.

By 1957, NASA was on the hunt for minimal yet nutritional products astronauts could haul with them to space without bogging down their rocket with unnecessary weight. Turning their sights to General Mills, Mitchell patents and creates TANG, a powdered, nutritionally-dense substance that was easy to mix with water and delicious. Well, delicious to almost everyone except famed astronaut Buzz Aldrin who, back in 2013, was quoted saying “Tang sucks.”

The year prior to his discovery of TANG, Mitchell made a new discovery while trying to design an instant soft drink when he put some sugar flavoring mixed with carbon dioxide in his mouth. The resulting exploding candy became a cultural phenomenon after it hit the market and became what we know and love today as Pop Rocks.

In 1967, Mitchell gave us the greatest gift of all, Cool Whip, which became the most successful and most profitable invention of his career. His last great achievement followed suit to the powdered version of a substance — eggs! Mitchell is the reason we have powdered eggs whites available worldwide.

So the next time you need Cool Whip for a recipe or see a child’s eyes light up at the sound of crackling Pop Rocks, remember to thank our good pal William A. Mitchell, chemist and artist.