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SMART NEWS

Big Ideas


WHY MIT RESEARCHERS ARE STUDYING OREOS

Fluid dynamics experts find that it’s nearly impossible to split the
black-and-white cookie’s sweet filling evenly in half

Sarah Kuta

Daily Correspondent

April 22, 2022

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oreo cookies helped inspire a new field of study coined "Oreology" by
researchers at MIT. Pixabay

Since childhood, Crystal Owens has been stymied by a lingering question about
one of her favorite snack foods: Is it possible to twist an Oreo cookie and
split the sweet, creamy filling evenly in half between both chocolate wafers?
Now, Owens and other fluid dynamics experts at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) think they finally have an answer.

Per a new paper published this week in the journal Physics of Fluid, the
researchers suggest that it’s nearly impossible to split Oreo’s famous creme so
that half ends up on each wafer.

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New research from MIT suggests that it’s nearly impossible to split Oreo creme
so that half ends up on each wafer. Physics of Fluids

“In essentially all possible twisting configurations, the creme tends to
delaminate from one wafer, resulting in one nearly bare wafer and one with
almost all the creme,” Owens tells Vice’s Becky Ferreira. “In the case that
creme ends up on both wafers, it tends to divide in half so that each wafer has
a ‘half-moon’ of creme rather than a thin layer, so there is no secret to get
creme evenly everywhere just by twisting open—you have to mush it manually if
that's what you want.”

The results were surprising, as Owens and her colleagues fully expected to be
able to split the creme with some experimental techniques in the lab. To
understand the scientific underpinnings of the iconic black-and-white cookie
made by Nabisco, they used an instrument known as a rheometer, which twisted the
cookie between two plates.

They tested a variety of Oreo filling quantities (such as “Double Stuf” and
“Mega Stuf” cookies), tried dipping the cookies in milk and even tweaked the
device’s rotation rate, but nothing made a difference: The creme still stuck
primarily to one wafer. The researchers attribute this to the Oreo production
process, which creates one “creme-heavy side” of each cookie, they write in the
paper.

MIT researchers tested different Oreo flavors, filling levels and rotation
rates. Pixabay


“It turns out there’s not really a trick to it,” Owens tells Popular Science’s
Philip Kiefer. “Everything you try to do will get mostly a clean break. It’s a
bit disappointing that there’s not some secret twist.”

In addition to detailing the results of their experiments, they also coined a
new field of study: Oreology, which is a mashup of “Oreo” and the Greek phrase
“rheo logia,” which means “flow study.” The new field is officially “the study
of the flow and fracture of sandwich cookies,” according to the paper.

Researchers at MIT used an instrument known as a rheometer to study the flow and
fracture of Oreos. Physics of Fluids

Importantly for citizen scientists and Oreo-lovers alike, the researchers also
developed and tested a new Oreometer that uses rubber bands and coins. They
published the instructions for building this 3-D-printed device online.

“When you want to study the fluid mechanics of food, or ‘Fooid Mechanics,’ with
scientific rigor, you need a tool to make quantitative measurements,” the
researchers write in an introduction to the instructions.

Though studying Oreo cookies may seem trivial, the research could be an
important tool for explaining complex fluid dynamics principles used in fields
like 3-D printing and a potential gateway for getting new individuals interested
in science more broadly.



"When we talk about the physics of complicated materials, and there are many,
the Oreo cookie creme is one that is accessible to many people immediately,"
Randy Ewoldt, a mechanical engineer at the University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign who was not involved in the study, tells CNN’s Madeline
Holcombe. "To bring people into a much more complicated world, this may serve as
an entryway for that."



Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers
history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other
topics.

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