Food Facts

Ketchup was created for use as a drug, not as a condiment.

The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

The average American/Canadian will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.

Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, or creamy.

A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.

You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime. Wow.

The average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year.

Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight.

Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Iceland consumes more Coca-cola per capita than any other nation.

Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.

Only food that does not spoil: honey

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

The average ear of corn has eight-hundred kernels arranged in sixteen rows.

A full seven percent of the entire Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness beer.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

In Japan meat from the 'Fugu' or spiny puffer fish is considered a rare delicacy, however the liver and intestines contain a powerful neuro-toxin and the slightest contamination during preparation can be deadly. Restaurants who serve fugu must have 'Fugu certified' chefs. In Japan about one hundred people on average die annually from fugu poisoning.

celery requires more calories to eat and digest than it contains.

cherries are a member of the rose family.

corn always has an even number of ears.

corn makes up about 8% of the weight in a box of corn flakes.

eggplants are actually fruits, and classified botanically as berries.

honey is the only edible food for humans that will never go bad.

lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.

orange does not rhyme with any other word.

peanuts are legumes and not a tree nut.

peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.

pear is a fruit that ripens from the inside out.

strawberries are the only fruit which has its seeds on its outer skin.

Worcestershire Sauce: Is made from dissolved fish (Anchovy). I've used it for years and never knew.

Refried Beans: Only fried once. The name is a mistaken translation of frijoles refritos which means well fried.

Peanuts: Dynamite is made partly of peanuts. Peanut oil is used to make glycerol which is used to make nitroglycerin. Peanuts, by the way, are legumes, not nuts.

Coconut: Coconut water can be used in an emergency as a substitute for blood plasma.

Coca-Cola: Was originally green.

Mushroom: One in Oregon covers over three square miles and is still growing.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a herb that takes its name from the Greek war hero Achilles and is considered an important herb for the treatment of wounds.

bananas were noted by Arab traders as small, about the size of a man’s finger, and so called them banan, which means fingertips in Arabic. The banana plant is the world’s largest herb and is often mistaken for a tree, but it does not have a woody trunk or boughs.

Dijon mustard originated in 1856, when Jean Naigeon of Dijon substituted verjuice, the acidic green juice of not-quite-ripe grapes, for vinegar in the traditional mustard recipe.

french yellow mustard was created by Robert Timothy French and debuted at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair as a cream salad mustard; this very mild mustard is coloured bright yellow by the inclusion of turmeric.

hot mustards refers to the mustards which have been prepared in such a way to bring out the natural hotness created by the myrosinase and two sulfur compounds, myrosin and sinigrin, that are naturally present in mustard seeds. When mustard seeds are crushed and mixed with cold water, these compounds break down to form a volatile oil which vaporizes to produce the hot sensation one experiences when consuming hot mustards. The hotness of mustard dissipates with time and if the mustard is exposed to heat in cooking

mustard is an emulsifier which can stabilize a mixture of two or more unblendable liquids such as oil and water; added to Hollandaise sauce, mustard can reduce the possibility of curdling.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.

During an average person's life, they will consume about 60,000 pounds of food.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?

The world's largest wine cask is in Heidelberg, Germany.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Coca-cola was originally green.

The world's oldest piece of chewing gums is 9000 years old.

It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot.

They have square watermelons in Japan. They stack better.

Cream does not weigh as much as milk.

brain freeze was invented in 1994 by 7-Eleven to explain the pain one feels when drinking a Slurpee too fast. The medical term is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

almonds are a member of the peach family.

Americans eat approximately 10kg of tomatoes yearly, over half of which is in the form of catsup and tomato sauce.

apple is made up of 25% air, which is why they float.

apple seed contains cyanide.

apples, onions, and potatoes all have the same taste. Try this: Pinch your nose and take a bite out of each.

asparagus contains a sulfur-containing compound called methyl mercaptan as well as the amino acid asparagine which when metabolized in the digestive tract causes urine to have have a strong odour.

Broccoli is a vegetable with a nervous system. Primitive though it may be, it CAN feel pain.

It is believed ALL citrus fruits derived from the Chinese orange.

There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo!

apple is made of 25% air, that is why they float.

apples, onions, and potatoes all have the same taste? Try the test: Pinch your nose and take a bite out of each.

avocado has the highest protein and oil content of all fruits, but most of this is the healthier unsaturated type.

cabbage is 91% water.

carrots were originally purple in color, changing in the 17th Century to orange with newer varieties.

Several ancient cultures viewed the apple as a feminine symbol and found a resemblance between the two halves of a vertically cut apple to the female genital system. Alternatively, an apple cut horizontally resembled a pentagram, which was considered key in revealing knowledge of good and evil.

The banana tree is not a true fruit at all but a giant herb and the banana is actually its berry. A banana plant produces only one bunch or hand in its life, but that bunch may have between 100 to 400 bananas. Despite its phallic shape, the banana is sterile and no fertilization takes place in the banana flowers. A banana plant grows when one of its shoots is planted.

Onion is Latin for large pearl. A basket of onions was considered a respectable funeral offering in ancient Egypt, second only to a basket of bread. Onions, with their circular layers, represented eternity and were found in the eyes of King Ramses IV who died in 1160 B.C.

Kissing may have originated when mothers orally passed chewed solid food to their infants during weaning.

The earliest form of eating processed food occurred in early hunting cultures when the men who made a kill would be rewarded with a meal of the partially digested contents of the stomach of their prey.

The largest item found on any menu is roasted camel which is still served at some Bedouin weddings and was offered by royalty in Morocco several hundred years ago. The camel is cleaned and then stuffed with one whole lamb, 20 chickens, 60 eggs, and 110 gallons of water, among other ingredients.

Oysters have often been considered aphrodisiacs

At Delphi, the spiritual center of Greece, many cooks were needed to organize and direct sacrifices to the gods.

Drinking fresh milk in the classical world was considered a luxury because milk was so difficult to preserve.

The Arabs invented caramel, which served as a depilatory (hair removal) for women in a harem.

Worcestershire sauce is made from dissolved anchovies (including the bones) that have been soaked in vinegar.

The first soup was made from hippopotamus and dates back to 6000 B.C.

Perhaps as a relic of an ancient Roman custom of planting parsley on graves, a sprig of parsley was either associated with the devil or as an antidote for poison. Adding a sprig to a plate of food may have originated as a gesture of good faith and as way to safeguard the meal from evil.

At both Ephesus and Eleusis in Greece the priestess were known as bees because bees and the way honey was gathered and eaten had religious connotations. Honey, considered miraculously made by bees, often signified truth because honey needs no treatment after it has been collected and it does not deteriorate.

Beans have historically been a symbol of the embryo and of growth in most societies. The ancient Egyptians called the place in which the Ka, the souls of the dead awaited reincarnation the bean field.

The tomato is technically a fruit, not a vegetable. It was also the first genetically engineered whole product and went on the market in 1994. Since then, more than 50 other genetically engineered foods have been deemed safe by the FDA.

Lemon juice was thought to dissolve ingested fish bones

During the Middle Ages, a lemon slice was served with fish because it was thought the juice would dissolve any bones that were accidentally swallowed.

Chili peppers are hot because they contain a substance called alkaloid capsaicin and four other related chemicals. It is also the primary ingredient in pepper spray.

The warriors of Attila, king of the Huns, (A.D. 450) preserved their meat by placing fresh meat under their saddles. All the bouncing squeezed fluids from the meat, and the horse’s sweat salted the meat and removed more moisture. When the warrior stopped to eat, they had a dried and salted meal.

People were using garlic to repel vampires long before Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published. Folklorists suggest it is because vampires have a heightened sense of smell and the garlic’s strong smell was overpowering. Garlic is proven to be effective against two other bloodsuckers: mosquitoes and ticks.

Bread has become the prime symbol of nourishment and sharing bread is often a symbolic gesture. The word companion is derived from Latin com, ‘together,’ and panis, ‘bread.’

Odor is by far the most important contributor to the flavor of food. The contributions of taste, texture, and appearance are insignificant by comparison. Humans can distinguish an estimated 20,000 different odor qualities.

Cooking food is one of the great revolutionary innovations of history because it not only transformed the way we prepare food, but because it also became a center of cultural communion and organized society.

Ancient Egyptian priests would eat figs at the moment of their consecration ceremonies. The Indians consecrated the fig tree to Vishnu, and the fig free sheltered Romulus and Remus (the traditional founders of Rome) at their birth.g The fig is also a fertility symbol and the Arab association with male genitals is so strong that the original word fig is considered improper.

Corn always has even number of rows

A row of corn always has an even number.

An American will typically eat the equivalent of 28 pigs in his or her lifetime.

Nearly 27 million Americans eat at McDonald's per day.

Hippocrates notes that dogs were somewhat indigestible while boiled puppy was an appropriate food for invalids. Galen later notes that the meat of a young castrated dog is the best.

In the Philippines, it is considered good luck if a coconut is cleanly split open without jagged edges.

Eating eggs is taboo in some areas of Africa because eggs are thought to make childbirth more difficult and to excite children.

The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; 7 was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. UP indicated the direction of the bubbles.

The first ring donuts were produced in 1847 by a 15 year old baker’s apprentice, Hanson Gregory, who knocked the soggy center out of a fried doughnut.

Half of all coffee drinkers drink it black.

It takes four tons of grapes to make one ton of raisins.

Sliced bread was introduced under the Wonder Bread label in 1930.

Apples are the most popular fruit in the U.S.

13 boxes of jello are sold every second.

The hamburger was invented in 1900 by Louis Lassen. He ground beef, broiled it, and served it between two pieces of toast.

A can of spam is opened every 4 seconds somewhere on Earth.

An average adult eats 2,000 pounds of food each year.

A honey bee must tap two million flowers to make one pound of honey.

An etiquette writer of the 1840’s advised, Ladies may wipe their lips on the tablecloth, but not blow their noses on it.

Astronaut John Glenn ate the first meal in space when he ate pureed applesauce squeezed from a tube aboard Friendship 7 in 1962.

California’s Frank Epperson invented the Popsicle in 1905 when he was 11-years-old.

During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush, (1897-1898) potatoes were practically worth their weight in gold. Potatoes were so valued for their vitamin C content that miners traded gold for potatoes.

In 1860, ‘Godey’s Lady’s Book’ advised US women to cook tomatoes for at least 3 hours.

Rice is the staple food of more than one-half of the world’s population.

Saffron, made from the dried stamens of cultivated crocus flowers, is the most expensive cooking spice.

The Pillsbury Bake-off has been held every year since 1948.

The pound cake got its name from the pound of butter it contained.

The sandwich is named for the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), for whom sandwiches were made so that he could stay at the gambling table without interruptions for meals.

The vintage date on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling.

The white part of an egg is the albumen.

The white potato originated in the Andes Mountains and was probably brought to Britain by Sir Francis Drake about 1586.

black-eyed peas are really beans.

blenders were invented by Stephen Poplawski when in 1922 he became the first person to put a spinning blade at the bottom of a small electric appliance to make Horlick's malted milk shakes.

Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.

When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.

Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Plain grain products lower your IQ, while whole grain products increase your IQ.

Eating lemons make you live longer.

McDonald’s Big Mac slogan, introduced in 1975, is: Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun.

Broccoli is the food with the best anti-cancer properties.

Hostess Twinkies were invented in 1931 by James Dewar, manager of Continental Bakeries' Chicago factory. He envisioned the product as a way of using the company's thousands of shortcake pans which were otherwise employed only during the strawberry season. Originally called Little Shortcake Fingers, they were renamed Twinkie Fingers, and finally Twinkies.

Eating half an orange a day reduces your chances of getting a heart attack by 50%.

Eating one meal of fish a week reduces your chances of getting a heart attack by 50%.

Mincemeat was originally a medieval food made of a sweet, spicy mixture of chopped lean meat, (usually beef, or beef tongue), suet and fruit. Over time, the meat content was reduced, and today the mixture contains nuts, dried fruit, beef suet, spices and brandy or rum, but usually no beef.

Mushrooms have no chlorophyll so they don't need sunshine to grow and thrive. Some of the earliest commercial mushroom farms were set up in caves in France during the reign of King Louis XIV (1638-1715).

Almonds are a member of the Rosaceae (Rose) family which includes peaches.

Chop-suey is not a native Chinese dish, it was created in California by Chinese immigrants.

The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.

The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.

Argentinians eat more meat than any other nation in the world.

In 1904, the ice cream cone was invented.

You'll drink 16,000 gallons in your life.

Persians first began using colored eggs to celebrate spring in 3,000 B.C. 13th century Macedonians were the first Christians on record to use colored eggs in Easter celebrations. Crusaders returning from the Middle East spread the custom of coloring eggs, and Europeans began to use them to celebrate Easter and other warm weather holidays.

Pine, spruce, or other evergreen wood should never be used in barbecues. These woods, when burning or smoking, can add harmful tar and resins to the food. Only hardwoods should be used for smoking and grilling, such as oak, pecan, hickory, maple, cherry, alder, apple, or mesquite, depending on the type of meat being cooked.

The first meal on the moon was roast turkey, eaten by Niel Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Baskin Robbins once made ketchup-flavored ice cream.

Someone living in New York could eat out every night of their life and never eat at the same restaurant.

The Snickers bar is America's most popular candy bar.

Americans eat 12 billion bananas each year.

The Incas measured time by how long it took a potato to cook.

lobster was so common in Maine in the 18th Century that it was used as fertilizer.

margarine was first called Butterine in England when it was introduced.

mayonnaise will kill lice and also condition your hair.

Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.

milk from a reindeer has more fat than cows milk.

milk is the new diet drink since low-fat, high-calcium dairy foods may burn off fat since extra calcium increases metabolism.

nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

Apples ripen after being picked while oranges do not.

Broccoli was introduced into the U.S. in the 1920s.

Choking on food is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

Potato chips are the biggest selling snack food in the U.S. and Canada.

A peanut is one of the most concentrated source of nourishment.

Half the people in the world will eat rice on any given day.

In 1976, the first eight Jelly Belly® flavors were launched: Orange, Green Apple, Root Beer, Very Cherry, Lemon, Cream Soda, Grape, and Licorice.

Alaskans eat twice as much ice cream per capita than the rest of the nation.

In 1926, when a Los Angeles restaurant owner with the all-American name of Bob Cobb was looking for a way to use up leftovers, he threw together some avocado, celery, tomato, chives, watercress, hard-boiled eggs, chicken, bacon, and Roquefort cheese, and named it after himself: Cobb salad.

A typical banana travels 4,000 miles before being eaten.

There are 27 chemicals that can be added to bread without being listed on the label.

In the United States, a pound of potato chips costs two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.

Potato chips are American’s favorite snack food. They are devoured at a rate of 1.2 billion pounds a year.

Potato chips were invented in Saratoga Springs in 1853 by chef George Crum. They were a mocking response to a patron who complained that his French fries were too thick.

Coffee is the world's most recognizable smell.

The ice cream soda was invented in 1874 by Robert Green. He was serving a mixture of syrup, sweet cream and carbonated water at a celebration in Philadelphia. He ran out of cream and substituted ice cream.

lettuce is the only vegetable or fruit which is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh.

olive oil has lots of anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory activity to fight rheumatoid arthritis.

olive oil is the only vegetable oil that can be created simply by pressing the raw material.

onion is named after a Latin word meaning large pearl.

orange does not rhyme with any other word.

organ meats were known as garbage in the 16th Century, the term then used for the innards of an animal.

parmigiano is a natural source of and has a high concentration of monosodium glutamate (MSG), giving it the unami taste, found as small white crystals formed during maturation.

peanuts are legumes and not a tree nut.

Most ice cream is eaten between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m.

barbecue comes from barbacoa, a Caribbean crude framework for sleeping or drying meat over a fire.

beer drunk with dinner works better than drinking red wine, gin or sparkling mineral water in controlling homocysteine, a blood factor that promotes heart disease by boosting blood levels of vitamin B6.

beer in a can was first sold on January 24, 1935 in Richmond, Virginia. Brewed by Kreuger Beer in a steel can made by the American Can Company. By August 1935, Pabst became the first major brewer to add canned beer to its regular product line.

brown sugar is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar with some residual molasses or produced by the addition of molasses to refined white sugar.

butter and margarine are similar in calories, the difference is that butter is higher in saturated fats, while margarine generally has more unsaturated fats.

Ketchup: Originally created as a drug, not a condiment.

Apples: Have more stimulant than caffeine - try one in the morning and leave a comment.

Almonds: Are a member of the peach family.

Honey: The only food that will not spoil (I had thought that peanut butter didn't either).

Cherries: Tart cherries may have more pain killer than aspirin.

Asparagus: Is a member of the lily family.

Gum: Bubble gum (and any chewing gum, I think) is illegal in Singapore and has been since the 1980's.

butterflies taste with their feet.

cabbage is 91% water.

canola is derived from Canadian oil, low acid.

capers are the unopened green flower buds of a wild and cultivated bush which is related to the cabbage family.

capsaicin, which makes hot peppers hot to the human mouth, is best neutralized by casein, the main protein in milk.

carrots were originally purple in color, changing in the 17th Century to orange with newer varieties.

celery requires more calories to eat and digest than it contains.

cereal as a word is derived from the name of the Roman goddess Ceres, protector of crops.

champagne contains 49 million bubbles in a bottle and has a pressure 3 times that of a car Tyre.

cherries are a member of the rose family.

chewing gum may keep you slim by boosting the metabolic rate by about 20%.

chewing gum stimulates signals in the learning center of the brain and thus help save memory as you age.

chicken is one of the few things that we eat before it's born and after it's dead.

chili heat is measured in Scoville units, named after the pharmacist Thomas Scoville.

chocolate bloom occurs when the cocoa butter has separated causing it to rise to the surface of the chocolate and is a result of the chocolate being stored in too humid or too warm a temperature.

chocolate is a particularly good source of magnesium, potassium and calcium. It also has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. On the down side it contains caffeine and has a high fat level.

chocolate may have its romantic effect due to the effects on the brain of a naturally occurring substance called phenylethylamine which enhances endorphin levels, increase libido and act a natural antidepressant.

coca-cola was originally green.

coffee is the most recognized smell in the world.

coffee originated from the Arabic word qahwah.

condensed milk was patented by Gail Borden in 1856.

corn always has an even number of ears.

corn makes up about 8% of the weight in a box of corn flakes.

cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

cream is lighter than milk.

doughnuts were originally made of raised dough with a nut in the center.

dried milk was first mentioned by Marco Polo of Mongolian Tatar troops in the time of Kublai Khan carrying sun-dried skimmed milk as a kind of paste, but the first usable commercial production of dried milk was invented by the Russian chemist M. Dirchoff in 1832.

egg spills can be fixed by sprinkling a generous amount of salt on the egg and let it dry, then sweep the egg up with a broom.

egg that float in water are considered to be off and should not be eaten; as eggs age, gases build up inside the shell making it more buoyant.

eggplants are actually fruits, and classified botanically as berries.

eggs contain most of the recognized vitamins with the exception of vitamin C.

fish consumption may be more than brain food but also help protect your eyes from age-related macular degeneration, a potential cause of blindness.

flamingos owe their pink or reddish color to the rich sources of carotenoid pigments in the algae and small crustaceans that the birds eat.

Fortune cookies are not Chinese, they were invented in Los Angeles around 1920.

gelato comes from the Italian word gelare which means to freeze; it is made from cow milk and its rich taste comes from being denser (30% air whereas ice cream is around 50%).

Gerber's top selling baby food in Japan is sardine dish.

Guinness beer, after pouring, produces bubbles that sink to the bottom. The bubbles go up more easily in the centre of the beer glass than on the sides because of drag from the walls. As the bubbles go up, they raise the beer, and the beer has to spill back, and it does. It runs down the sides of the glass carrying the bubbles - particularly little bubbles - with it, downward to the bottom of the glass.

hamburgerology can be studied at Hamburger University, located in Elk Grove, Illinois.

hamburgers were invented in 1900 by Louis Lassen. He ground beef, broiled it, and served it between two pieces of toast.

Heinz Catsup leaves the bottle traveling at 40 kilometers per year.

himalayan gogi berry contains, weight for weight, more iron than steak, more beta carotene than carrots, more vitamin C than oranges.

honey is the only edible food for humans that will never go bad.

horseradish was the first product sold by Heinz in 1869.

humble pie comes from the food umble pie, a pie consisting of the innards of deer, which very poor people in Medieval England ate.

ice cream was brought back by Marco Polo from China in 1295, from a recipe called Milk Ice. Europeans substituted cream for the milk to create Ice Cream.

The Arhuaca people of northern Columbia call themselves Ijka, which means 'men of corn'. They eat corn in all their meals and use corn's four colors (yellow, coffee, black, and white) to outline their view of the universe.

Instant coffee was invented by Japanese American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago in 1901.

Instant noodles (modern version), or ramen, were invented by Momofuku Ando in 1958 after watching his wife prepare tempura; dunking freshly cooked noodles in chicken soup before flash-frying them in palm oil would enable water to leach out while preserving the flavor of the broth. From here, they would be ready to eat after just a few minutes in boiling water.

ketchup was originally a fish sauce originating in the orient. Two words from the Fujian region of China were used to describe a fish brine / sauce and a tomato sauce – ke-tsap and kio-chiap.

Kopi Luwa from Indonesia is the world's costliest coffee, at USD$700 a kilogram, thanks to a unique taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of droppings of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat, which eats ripe robusta coffee cherries for treats. The coffee beans, which are found inside of the cherries, remain intact after passing through the animal. Plantation workers track them and scoop their precious poop.

lemon slices have been served with fish since the Middle Ages, when people believed that the fruit's juice would dissolve any bones accidentally swallowed.

lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.

lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.

peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.

pear is a fruit that ripens from the inside out.

Pepsi-Cola was invented by Caleb Bradham in 1898. Originally called Brad's Drink, the beverage was first marketed as a digestive aid and energy booster. It was renamed Pepsi-Cola because of its pepsin and kola nut content.

percentage alcohol in a bottle of liquor is estimated by dividing the proof by two.

pineapple is the international symbol of hospitality.

pizza originated in the early 1700's in Naples, Italy.

pizza toppings of squid are the most popular variety in Japan.

Popsicle were invented by an 11 year old, Frank Epperson when he left his soda water drink with a stirring stick overnight on his porch.

potato crisps were invented by a North American Indian called George Crum in 1853.

pound cake was so named because of its original proportions of 1 lb (500g) each of butter, sugar, and flour.

puffed grain were invented by Alexander Anderson in 1902. Unlike popcorn, a type of corn that naturally pops or puffs up with heat, puffed cereal or snacks are formed by exploding whole grain kernels under high pressure and steam.

raisin in a glass of champagne will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.

refried beans aren't really what they seem. Although their name seems like a reasonable translation of Spanish frijoles refritos, the fact is that these beans aren't fried twice. In Spanish, refritos literally means well-fried, not re-fried.

rice paper does not contain one grain of rice - its made from either Rice straw, Bamboo, Hemp, Mulberry leaves, Wingceltis or Gampi.

Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for apple sauce. Ironically his name means apple sauce in Japanese.

salary is derived from salarium (Latin) or soldier's allowance for the purchase of salt.

sandwiches are named after John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), for whom beef was placed between 2 sliced pieces of bread so that he could stay at the gambling table without interruptions for meals.

shredded wheat was the first breakfast cereal to ever be produced.

sliced bread was introduced by Otto Frederick Rohwedder who invented the bread slicer, which he started working on in 1912. At first, Rohwedder came up with the idea of a device that held the slices together with hat pins (not a success). In 1928, he designed a machine 1.52m long by 0.90m high that sliced and wrapped the bread in waxed paper to prevent the sliced bread from going stale. On July 7, 1928, the first loaves of sliced bread were made by the near bankrupt baker Frank Bench.

soup has its origin as a word from 'sop' or 'sup', meaning the slice of bread on which the broth was poured.

soy flour and soya flour are richer in calcium and iron than wheat flour, gluten-free and high in protein.

soy flour is ground from raw soybeans; soya flour from lightly toasted soybeans.

spilling salt is considered good luck in Japan.

strawberries are the only fruit which has its seeds on its outer skin.

swiss cheese ferments with bacteria generating gas which bubbles through the cheese leaving holes; cheese-makers call them eyes.

tea strengthens bones because isoflavonoid chemicals in tea may have a weak estrogenic effect, reducing bone deterioration and osteoporosis risk.

ten gallon hats only hold about 6 pints or 2.8 Liters.

thyme's most active ingredient is thymol, the antibacterial ingredient found in mouthwashes and Vicks Vaporub.
TIPS were given by people in coffee houses in the 18th century who wanted good service and better seating by putting money in a tin labelled To Insure Prompt Service.

toasters for bread using electricity were invented by Crompton and Company, Leeds, England in 1893; the first automatic pop-up electric toaster was designed in 1919 by Charles Strite.

toasting bread began as a method of prolonging the life of bread and was a very common activity in Roman times, 'tostum' is the latin word for scorching or burning.

tomato used to be considered poisonous.

Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.

Orange Juice: Naturally contains a small amount of alcohol.

Strawberries: Have more vitamin C than oranges.

Vinegar: Melts pearls (leave a comment if you try this).

London Broil: Is not a cut of beef but a method of cooking.

Avocados: Have more protein than any other fruit and are poisonous to birds.

traditional italian food is an anagram of radiation, toil, fat and oil.

TV dinners were invented by Gerry Thomas and introduced in 1954 by his Omaha-based CA Swanson & Sons featuring roast turkey with stuffing and gravy, sweet potatoes and peas, selling for 98 cents.

V-8 Juice contains tomato, spinach, celery, carrot, beet, lettuce, watercress and parlsey juice.

Vegemite is an Australian icon which was developed in 1922 by Dr. Cyril Callister. He took used brewer's yeast and blended the yeast extract with ingredients like celery, onion, salt, and a few secret ingredients to make this paste rich in B vitamins; it was developed for the Fred Walker Company which is now Kraft Foods.

Wheaties were discovered by accident when in 1921, a health clinician in Minneapolis was mixing a batch of bran gruel for his patients when he spilled some of the mix on a hot stove. The gruel crackled and sizzled into a crisp flake. Tasting the very first Wheaties prototype, he decided this delicious accident had promise and took the crisped gruel to the people at the Washburn Crosby Company (later known as General Mills).

white chocolate is not a true chocolate because it contains no chocolate liquor, instead its made of sugar, cocoa butter, milk solids, lecithin and vanilla.

white shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and earlobes while brown eggs are produced by hens with red feathers and earlobes; the colour has no relationship to the nutritional quality or taste of the eggs.

Wrigley's gum was the first product to have a bar code.

xerophagy is the eating of dry food, a form of fasting that some members of the early Christian Church practiced.

yelling for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days produces enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

zymology or zymurgy is the science or study of the processes of fermentation.

Aunt Jemima pancake flour, invented in 1889, was the first ready-mix food to be sold commercially.

Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

Goulash, a beef soup, originated in Hungary in the 9th century AD.

Haggis, the national dish of Scotland: take the heart, liver, lungs, and small intestine of a calf or sheep, boil them in the stomach of the animal, season with salt, pepper and onions, add suet and oatmeal. Enjoy!

beer is a popular ingredient in batter for deep fried foods since the protein in beer provides browning and produces a light, crisp, dry batter when cooked.

beer of 375mL has fewer calories than two slices of bread and contains no fat.

birds eat half their own body weight in food each day! So, why do people say that a poor eater eats like a bird?

biscuit is a word derived from Latin via Middle French and means twice cooked.

black pepper is the most popular spice in the world.