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It can cause problems from fever to vomiting to respiratory melt-down and, according to doses of less than a teaspoon have been toxic in small children. Woo-hoo – how’s that for making a short answer long?īefore you go on that all Wint-O-Green Lifesaver diet, you should know that methyl salicylate has a dirty little secret:it’s toxic. It then re-emits the light, thus delaying and increasing the effect. Other than providing the yummy mint flavor, methyl salicylate can absorb ultraviolet light.

The Wint-O-Green variety of Lifesavers has the magic ingredient, methyl salicylate. That is what happens with the wimpy cherry Lifesavers that failed you or a sugar cube, for that matter.īut this is where it gets good. This creates some ultraviolet light but usually not enough to see.

This can cause tiny sparks to hop around, which, in turn, excites nitrogen molecules in the air. When you crush sugar crystals, you are tearing apart chemical bonds, which creates fragments that are positively and negatively charged. The Lifesaver effect also is called triboluminescence, the creation of light by friction. That’s one answer, but I just don’t send people away without at least one 50-cent word to make them feel superior to their friends.