An award winning middle schoolers science project showed that on average 70% of the time ice from fast food restaurants is dirtier than toilet water. Source
Aunt Jemima pancake flour, invented in 1889, was the first ready-mix food to be sold commercially.
There is a counterfeit egg industry in China, and one person can make approximately 1500 of them per day. Source
Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
Movie theater popcorn costs more per ounce than filet mignon. Source
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
A 2008 study found that fast food hamburgers were made up of only 12% meat. The rest was water weight, bone, cartilage, plant matter, and parasites. Source
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!
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. Source
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."
When McDonald’s first introduced drive-throughs to China, the concept was so foreign that many people would pick up their food through the drive-thru, park their cars, and bring the food inside the restaurant to eat it. Source
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.
Some Catholics urged Pope Clement VII to ban coffee, calling it “devil’s beverage”. After tasting the beverage, the Pope is said to have remarked that the drink was “… so delicious that it would be a sin to let only misbelievers drink it”. Source
You'll drink 16,000 gallons in your life.
In 2011, ketchup was banned in French School Cafeterias on the grounds that it posed a threat to the national cuisine. Source
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.
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.
Most ice cream is eaten between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m.
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.
Honey is the only food that will not rot. A jar of honey may remain edible for over 3000 years. Source
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.
70% of milk served in U.S. schools contains on average 4 teaspoons of added sugar per serving (about half the amount of sugar as a serving of Coke). Source
