1000+ Facts And Trivia

Chapter 42: Food! Food! Food! (Segunda)

• Crackers have holes in them for a reason. During the baking process, if the crackers have holes in them, if prevents air bubbles from ruining the product.

• Cheese is the most stolen food in the world. In fact, it’s stolen so much it has its own percentage! About 4% of all cheese made around the globe ends up stolen. There’s even a black market for cheese!

• Nutella is so popular, 25% of all hazelnuts end up in a jar! Since they’re in such high demand, some universities are trying to grow them in labs in order to negate global shortages.

• A corned beef sandwich was smuggled into space. An astronaut snuck a sandwich on his spacecraft for a 6-hour mission. When he took the sandwich out in zero-gravity, it started falling apart and he had to put it away before crumbs compromised the spaceship.

• Expiration dates on bottled water have nothing to do with the water. Water can’t expire – but the bottle it’s in can. Plastic bottles will eventually start leaking chemicals into the water. It won’t make the water harmful to drink, but it will make it taste less fresh.

• Some people are scared of peanut butter. Getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth is annoying sure, but to have an irrational fear of it happening is next level. But there’s a phobia for everything and this common occurrence is no exception. Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth!

• No one knows the origin of chocolate chip cookies. There are a few ideas of where this popular recipe came from. One suggests Ruth Wakefield, the creator of chocolate chip cookies, ran out of nuts for ice cream cookies and used chocolate instead. Others suggest chocolate chunks accidentally fell into the mixer, but the true story has never been confirmed.

• Margherita pizza is named after a queen. When King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples, they wanted a change from their fancy food and asked for pizza, which was food for the poor back then. The queen loved the mozzarella pizza so much that it ended up being named after her.

• Not all wine is vegan. With the main ingredient being grapes, you’d think this would be a no brainer. However, some common ingredients in wine are milk protein, egg white, gelatin, and fish bladder protein.

• In ancient Egyptian days, radishes, onions, and garlic were given to workers as wages. Radishes specifically were because they helped with infectious diseases!

• In Japan, chefs have to train for over two years in order to qualify to serve pufferfish. Pufferfish is a delicacy in Japan, but if it’s prepared wrong, it can kill the person eating it.

• Thomas Jefferson made pasta popular in the U.S. Thomas Jefferson is responsible for bringing the first macaroni machine over to the U.S. after spending time in France. He was also the one who introduced mac and cheese to Americans!

• Sweet drinks can cause dementia. It’s not quite as drastic as it originally sounds. However, studies have shown that people who drink one or more artificially sweetened drinks per day were almost three times more likely to developt dementia.

• Bird saliva is a delicacy in China. One expensive delicacy of China is Bird’s nest soup which is made from rare bird’s nests created from the saliva of small swiftlets. They have been used in China for cooker for over four centuries.

• Coffee beans can help eliminate bad breath. If you chew on roasted coffee beans, it can help prevent the bacteria that cause bad breath.

• Mountain Dew contains orange juice. Although it tastes like a lemon-lime soda, orange juice is third on the list of ingredients, just behind carbonated water and high fructose corn syrup.

• India produces, consumes, and exports the most chili peppers in the world. Chili peppers weren’t introduced to India until the 15th century, but they were a hit. These days, they not only eat and grow more than anyone else, but this is where you’ll find some of the spiciest peppers such as the bhut jolokia.

• The Netherlands drinks the most coffee per person. Each person drinks about 2.5 cups of coffee every day. Finland and Sweden trail behind them at 1.8 and 1.3 cups.

• Australians eat the most meat. Coming in at a whopping 200 pounds per person every year, Australians take first place, but are still closely followed by Americans.

• Astronauts ate food grown in space for the first time in 2015. Specifically, on August 10th, 2015, NASA astronauts sampled red romaine lettuce that was growing in a specially designed chamber. The fact that food can now be grown in space means we can explore space for longer without running out of food supplies.

• A ridiculous amount of Nutella is sold every year. So much so, that it could cover The Great Wall of China 8 times, you could circle the world 1.8 times, and the amount weighs the same as the Empire State Building.

• Eskimos use refrigerators to stop their food from freezing. You wouldn’t think you’d need anything to keep your food cold in the arctic, but it’s exactly the opposite! In order to prevent food from freezing, eskimos need refrigerators to keep it from getting too cold.

• You could survive off of breast milk. Breast milk is the only single food that provides all the nutrients that our bodies need. Adults could survive off of this as well, provided they receive enough of it.

• India has the lowest meat consumption in the world. Per capita, Indians only consume 7 pounds of meat per person per year.

• Chocolate has been used as a currency in Ancient civilizations of Mexico and South America. As the Aztecs started dominating Mesoamerica, they also loved cocoa beans which couldn’t be grown in their civilization. They had to rely on the Mayans, and traded cocoa beans with them as a system of money.

• Food tastes different when you’re flying. Altitude changes your body chemistry, making certain flavors taste different than how they taste when you’re on the ground.

• Goat meat is the most popular meat. Although we may be accustomed to burgers, goat meat accounts for 70% of the red meat eaten globally! This is great news because goats are better for you and the environment.

• A single strand of Spaghetti is called a “Spaghetto”.

• In 2006, a Coca-Cola employee offered to sell Coca-Cola secrets to Pepsi. Pepsi responded by notifying Coca-Cola.

• Fried chicken originated in Scotland. It was a Scottish tradition from the Middle Ages to deep fry chicken. The Scots bought this dish over to the Americas with them when immigrating to the Southern United States where it became a staple of American cuisine.

• M&M’s turned down product placement in ET. They were offered the chance to feature as the titular alien’s favorite candy by Steven Spielberg, but they turned the offer down as they believed the movie would bomb.

Source: TheFactSite

What's your favorite foooooooooood? Are you a foodie?