We spend about an hour eating every single day. We know which ingredients we like and which dishes we’d rather avoid. But there is still so much we don’t know about the food we cook and eat every day. Here are some of the most surprising facts about food that you probably didn’t know.
Gummy bears and cars are coated in the same wax.
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Carnauba wax is a substance derived from the leaves of carnauba palm trees. It is used to give gummy bears their trademark shiny glaze and prevent them from sticking together. It is also used to shine up cars, shoes, surfboards, and floors. However, the overall percentage of carnauba wax in gummies is a lot lower than the amount found in car polishes.
Before 2012, Pizza Hut was the largest purchaser of kale in the United States.
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Before the big kale craze of today, Pizza Hut used to be the largest wholesale purchaser of the leafy green vegetable. However, they didn’t use it as an ingredient for their food, kale was used to garnish their salad bars in the 1990s.
In 1943, the FDA banned sliced bread for three months.
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First introduced in 1928, machine-sliced bread quickly became a popular product in every household. But in January 1943, it was banned by the FDA for using too much wax paper which could be used for the war effort instead. Due to public outcry, the ban was lifted only three months later.
All Froot Loops colors taste the same.
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If you thought that the different Froot Loops colors all had different fruity flavors, you are not alone. However, the truth is that they are not individually flavored. According to Kellogg’s, the company that makes the colorful loops, all colors taste the same.
Cellulose is used To prevent shredded cheese from sticking together.
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Cellulose is a wood product and the main component of paper, cardboard, and some types of textiles. It is also used to coat pieces of shredded cheese to block out the moisture that makes them clump. Even though it sounds weird, there are no known harmful side effects from adding cellulose to food.
Ranch dressing and sunscreen share an ingredient.
Titanium dioxide is a chemical compound used in a wide range of applications. It is used to make white colors appear whiter not only in paint, laundry detergent and sunscreen, but also in ranch dressing, coffee creamer and other food products. In sunscreen, it also works as a UV filtering ingredient.
Lobsters used to be working-class food.
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When European colonists first arrived in America, the abundance of lobsters immediately lead them to consider it a poor man’s meal. Even throughout the 19th century, lobsters were only consumed by the working class. Then, in the 1880s they became trendy in Boston and New York City, which made their prices rise so much that only the rich could afford to eat them.
Broccoli contains as much protein as steak.
Both beef and broccoli are rich in protein, besides several other nutrients. When it comes to protein, you can get about 10 grams of it per 100 calories of beef and 100 calories of broccoli. However, you would need to eat two cups of cooked broccoli to add up to 108 calories, while you would only need a small cube of steak to ingest 106 calories.
The FDA allows food to contain bug parts.
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Since there’s no way to completely get rid of all creatures that might be present in the food processing chain, the FDA has a Food Defect Action Level handbook that determines how much trace amount of insect parts are allowed per food item. A 16 oz. box of spaghetti, for example, can have up to 450 insect parts and nine rodent hairs, while a 43-gram chocolate bar may contain up to 30 bug parts.
Apples are close relatives of roses.
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Just like roses, apples belong to the Rosaceae family. In fact, many fruits are also related to these beautiful flowers, including pears, plums, raspberries, cherries, apricots, peaches, strawberries and blackberries.
Carrots can turn your skin orange.
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Although it’s rare, carotenemia is a condition caused by having too much beta-carotene in your bloodstream. Basically, eating too much of carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and other vegetables rich in beta-carotene can turn your palms, soles, knees and elbows orange.
Honey never goes off.
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As long as your honey is stored in an air-tight container and kept in a dry place, it should last forever. The secret to its eternal shelf life is the lack of water in its natural state, which means very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in that environment. Besides, it is extremely acidic, so it will kill off basically anything that could grow in it.
Green and red bell peppers are different plants.
You probably know there are several colors of bell peppers: green, yellow, orange, red, white, and even purple. But did you know that each one of these colors comes from a different seed? The only exception is green bell peppers – although there is a variety that becomes green as it ripens, sometimes green-colored, unripe bell peppers are sold at the grocery store as green bell peppers.
An ostrich egg is equivalent to 24 chicken eggs.
Weighing more than three pounds, a single ostrich egg is equivalent to about two-dozen chicken eggs. While ostrich eggs are the biggest compared to the eggs of all living birds, chicken eggs weigh between 1.25 oz and 2.5 oz.
Grapes explode in the microwave.
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Despite not having any sort of flammable material in them, grapes (either one split in half or two fruits touching) produce fire when microwaved. Scientists explain that as the appliance pushes microwaves into the pieces of grape, hot spots form at the points where the fruit pieces are closest to each other and continue to warm up until the electrolytes surrounding them become supercharged. When that happens, these electrolytes form a type of gas called plasma, which bursts into a fireball.
Some trees can bear eight different fruits at the same time
Thanks to a technique called grafting, which is the act of placing a portion of one plant into another, some trees are able to grow up to eight different fruits within the same family. Called fruit salad trees, they come in four main types: stone fruit (plums, apricots, peaches, and nectarines), citrus (lemons, grapefruit, oranges, tangelos, pomelos, mandarins, and limes), multi apple (green, yellow, and red apples), and multi nashi (various kinds of Asian pears).
Corn has an even number of rows on each ear.
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A corn ear produces nearly 1,000 flowers, which are actually potential kernels. These flowers are arranged in an even number of rows because corn spikelets are born in pairs and each spikelet produces two florets.
Dark chocolate has major health benefits.
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Made from the roasted beans of the cacao tree, dark chocolate (70–85% cocoa) has many health benefits. It contains a decent amount of soluble fiber and has lots of minerals, such as iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. Dark chocolate is also a powerful source of antioxidants and may reduce heart disease risk according to several observational studies.
Honey is regurgitated by bees.
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To collect nectar from flowering plants, forager bees drink it. The nectar travels down a valve into an expandable pouch where it is kept until the bee comes back home and transfers it to a processor bee by the entrance of the hive. This bee, in turn, regurgitates the nectar on the hive and allows it to ripen.
Sweet potatoes and yams are not the same thing.
Even though some stores do sell orange-fleshed sweet potatoes as yams, these two are actually two different vegetables. Real yams are more like yucca when it comes to texture and flavor, and they have starchy flesh, not sweet.
In the 1830s, ketchup was used as medicine.
Back in the 1830s, tomato ketchup was believed to have medicinal properties. It was sold as a cure for indigestion, diarrhea, and jaundice. Eventually, Dr. John Cook started selling ketchup in pill form – and the idea was so successful the market supposedly collapsed in the 1850s.
Red food coloring comes from crushed bugs.
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Used as coloring for paints, cosmetics, medications, and even food, carmine is made from crushed-up cochineals. Native to Latin America, these insects have been harvested to produce dye for over five centuries.
White chocolate isn’t really chocolate.
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Made from cocoa butter, sugar, and milk solids, white chocolate isn’t actually considered chocolate. This is because it doesn’t contain cacao solids, the key constituent that defines dark and milk chocolate as chocolate.
Until 2011, Russia did not classify beer as alcohol.
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In July 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a bill officially classifying beer as alcoholic. Until then, any beverage containing less than 10% alcohol had been considered a foodstuff – and it was regulated as such. Nowadays, the sale of beer is controlled in the same way as other spirits.
Nutella uses 25% of the world’s hazelnuts.
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Made of sugar, palm oil, milk, cocoa powder and hazelnuts, each jar of Nutella contains about 50 hazelnuts. In order to produce 730 million pounds of the hazelnut spread every year, Ferrero uses about a quarter of the world’s hazelnut supply — more than 100,000 tons annually.
Ripe cranberries bounce like rubber balls.
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Due to a small pocket of air inside them, cranberries actually bounce when they are ripe. This means that the easiest way to tell if cranberries are ripe is to just toss one on the floor and watch it bounce like a bouncy ball.
Potatoes reflect Wi-Fi signals.
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According to Boeing spokesman Adam Tischler, potatoes absorb and reflect wave signals like humans do due to their water content and chemistry. In 2006, when Boeing Co. needed to test out in-flight Wi-Fi signals, engineers decided to use potatoes instead of hiring people to sit there while they conducted experiments.
Twinkies were originally filled with banana cream.
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Twinkies haven’t always been filled with vanilla cream. Originally, these delicious sponge cakes used to be filled with banana cream. When bananas became scarce during World War II, Hostess switched to vanilla cream. After the war, bananas were readily available again, but customers liked the vanilla filling better, so the company never switched back.
Fruit stickers are edible.
Even though you still should try to remove the sticker before eating an apple, you don’t have to worry about it too much. It turns out fruit stickers, just like food, are controlled by the FDA! They are edible and non-toxic.
Pistachios can spontaneously combust.
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Due to their low water and high fat content, large groups of pistachios could suddenly burst out in flames. For this reason, pistachio nuts and kernels have to be stored in oily fibrous materials when being transported so they don’t overheat.
Most supermarket wasabi is actually horseradish.
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Real wasabi is very challenging and expensive to grow and has to be consumed within 15 minutes of being grafted. This is why supermarkets sell colored horseradish with flavorings instead of the real thing.
Farmed salmon is dyed pink.
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While wild salmon is naturally pink because of all the shrimp in their diet, farm-raised salmon is actually gray. To give farmed salmon the same hue as wild salmon, farmers add carotenoids (red pigmenting compounds found in algae) to their feed.
Bananas are actually berries and strawberries aren’t.
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According to botanists, a fruit is the part of a flowering plant that contains seeds that have developed from the ovary. On the other hand, berries are fruits that stem from one flower with one ovary. While bananas (as well as tomatoes, cucumbers and kiwis) fit the definition of berries, strawberries (as well as blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries) are actually classified as “aggregate fruits”.
American cheese was invented in Switzerland.
Although it’s known as American cheese, this type of processed cheese was actually invented in Switzerland. It was created by Waltz Gerber and Fritz Stettler in 1911 as an option with a longer shelf-life to be shipped overseas.
Expiration dates on bottled water refer to the bottle, not the water.
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Most types of bottled water manufactured in the US have an expiration date printed on its plastic packaging. However, the date refers to the plastic bottles, not the water itself. This means “expired” water isn’t harmful, but might not taste as fresh.
3 Musketeers originally came in packs of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla candy bars.
Until World War II, 3 Musketeers came in packs of three candy bars: one strawberry, one chocolate, and one vanilla. It was advertised as a candy bar so big it could be shared with two friends. However, in the 1940s, producing all three flavors became too expensive, so Mars continued to make only the chocolate one.
Cashews grow on cashew apples.
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Cashews are not actual nuts, they are the fruit of the cashew apple. They grow on cashew trees and are harvested from cashew apples – which are also edible but, because of their bitter flesh, are usually used in juices, jams, and chutneys.
Cauliflower has more vitamin C than oranges.
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Although we usually associate oranges with this kind of vitamin, there are many vegetables that can provide us with more vitamin C than them. A small to medium cauliflower, for example, can give you up to 127 mg of vitamin C, while an orange has about 53.2 mg.
Potatoes have been grown in space.
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Back in October 1995, potatoes were brought into space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia to be grown in its Microgravity Astroculture Laboratory. According to NASA, the vegetables not only provided food and water to crews but also helped replenish oxygen in the air.
Caesar salad originated in Mexico.
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Caesar salad was created by Chef Caesar Cardini in Tijuana, Mexico. He was hosting a 4th of July celebration when the restaurant began to run out of food and he had to come up with a recipe with the ingredients he had lying around.
There’s a black market for cheese.
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In 2014, Western food exports were banned in Russia. As a result, a black market for cheese was originated. Russian officials caught several smugglers attempting to transport tons of contraband cheese into the country.
Egg yolks naturally contain Vitamin D.
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Known as the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D is naturally produced by our bodies when we’re directly exposed to sunlight. It has several important functions, including regulating the absorption of calcium and supporting our immune system. Although few foods actually contain naturally high amounts of vitamin D, a serving of two eggs provides 82% of your recommended daily intake.
A corned beef sandwich was smuggled into space in 1965.
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Back in the 1960s, meals in space consisted of nutrition pouches that astronauts had to suck. Preparing for a six-hour mission in 1965, astronaut John Young hid a corned beef sandwich in his pocket but, when he tried to eat it, quickly discovered it could not hold its shape in zero-gravity conditions.
Nutmeg can cause hallucinations.
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Due to the presence of a chemical called myristicin in nutmegs, eating too many of them can lead to hallucinations. Also found in parsley and dill, this chemical produces a compound that affects our central nervous system, causing not only hallucinations but also dizziness, nausea, and more.
Edible oysters don’t have pearls.
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The oysters we eat are actually a different species from the ones that bear pearls. While the edible ones belong to the family Ostreidae and are typically found on the shore, pearl oysters are part of the Pteriidae family and are found deep in the ocean.
Mushrooms can’t be overcooked.
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Mushrooms’ cell walls are made of a polymer called chitin, which is very heat-stable. Due to its structure, mushrooms are basically impossible to overcook. You could forget them in a pan for a long time and they won’t burn or lose their tender texture.
Cauliflower comes in multiple colors.
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Although we only usually see the white variety at the grocery store, there are actually other colors of cauliflower out there. In fact, they have different nutritional values: orange and purple cauliflower are higher in antioxidants than regular white cauliflower.
In the 17th century, pretzels were considered a symbol of love.
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Before the 17th century, pretzels were seen as a symbol of good luck. Afterward, they became a symbol of love as well. In 1614, royal couples in Switzerland even used pretzels in their wedding ceremonies to symbolize sealing the bond of matrimony. This, in fact, might be the origin of the phrase “tying the knot”.
Fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco, not China.
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Although we think of fortune cookies as a Chinese food staple, these tasty sugary cookies were not created in China. They actually originated from cookies made by Japanese immigrants to the United States in the 20th century.
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were invented by a janitor at the Frito-Lay plant.
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Working as a janitor for Frito-Lay in 1976, Richard Montanez took home a batch of unseasoned Cheetos when a machine broke down. He seasoned them with spices similar to those of Mexican street corn and pitched the concept to the company’s CEO.
Food tastes different when you’re flying.
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If you don’t like airplane food while you’re flying, you might have a different opinion on it on the ground. It turns out that several factors such as the dry air, altitude and pressurized cabin suppress our ability to taste sugar and salt by at least 30%. To accommodate for passengers’ loss in taste, airline caterers actually alter their recipes to ensure we enjoy them as much as possible.
Fresh eggs sink, bad eggs float.
If you have ever come home from a long trip and wondered if those eggs you had in the fridge were still good to eat, this one is for you. To test the freshness of your eggs, put them in a glass or bowl of cold water. Fresh eggs will sink, while bad eggs will float.
Ingredients on Nutrition labels are listed by weight.
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This is something everyone should know. Next time you check a product’s nutritional label, remember that the ingredients are listed in order of which ones are used the most. This means that products that claim to be healthy might not be so healthy after all.
The first-ever product to use barcodes was Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit.
In 1974, a barcode test system was installed at Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. On June 26, at 8:01 am, a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum was scanned – becoming the first product to have ever been scanned by a barcode reader. Today, the pack of gum and its receipt are on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
French fries were invented in Belgium.
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Despite their misleading name, French fries were actually invented in Belgium in the late 1600s. At the time, poor villagers would usually eat small fried fish – but when the winter came and the river froze they had to find other sources of food. Eventually, they started frying potatoes the same way they prepared fish. During World War I, Americans stationed in Belgium were introduced to the dish and brought it back to the United States.
In Japan, chefs have to train for over three years in order to qualify to serve pufferfish.
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Due to its tetrodotoxin, pufferfish can be lethally poisonous to humans if not cooked correctly. This is why its preparation is strictly controlled by law in Japan and chefs have to go through rigorous training for over three years to be allowed to cook it.
Pound cake got its name from its recipe.
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If you have ever wondered where pound cake gets its name from, here’s the answer. Pound cake used to call for one pound of each ingredient in the original recipe. This means that in the early 1700s, people would use about 10 eggs to make a single cake.
Crackers have holes to allow steam to escape during cooking.
If you thought crackers had tiny holes in them because they look cute, you were wrong. It turns out these little holes are actually necessary to allow steam to escape during cooking. It’s thanks to these holes that crackers remain crisp and flat instead of rising like other biscuits.
Margherita pizza symbolizes the Italian flag.
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According to popular tradition, Margherita pizza was created in 1889 and named after Queen Margherita of Savoy. Legend says chef Raffaele Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi wanted to create a pizza that resembled the Italian flag in honor of the Italian unification, so he used tomatoes, mozzarella and basil to match the colors of the country.
The first meal to ever be consumed in space was pureed meat and chocolate sauce.
In 1961, Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel in space. His first meal consisted of two servings of pureed meat and one serving of chocolate sauce, both stored in toothpaste-tube-like containers. In 1962, John Glenn became the first American to eat in space aboard Friendship 7, and his first meal was applesauce and xylose sugar tablets with water.
Before his Famous Amos cookies, Wally Amos was a talent agent who represented Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye.
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Even though Wally Amos is better known for his chocolate chip cookies, he started out as a talent agent at William Morris Agency. He signed Simon & Garfunkel and represented artists such as Diana Ross & the Supremes and Marvin Gaye. It was in 1975 that he opened his first Famous Amos store to sell his cookies with the help of a $25,000 loan from Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy.