Interesting & Amazing Facts
Food & Drink
Animal Crackers
There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Cracker cookie zoo.
Apples
* Apples, not caffeine are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
* There is no mention of Adam and Eve eating an apple in the Bible.
Allergies
People are most likely to be allergic to nuts.
Bacardi Rum
The bat on the Bacardi symbol is there because the soil where the sugar cane grows is fertile from the excessive guano (bat droppings).
Beer
* Worldwide, 20,000 brands of beer are brewed brewed in 180 styles, from ales, lagers, pilsner and stouts to bitters, cream ales and iced beers.
* Beer has been a popular beverage for a long time. Babylonian clay tablets show detailed recipes of beer making in 4300 BC. Beer was also brewed by the ancient Chinese, Assyrians and Incas.
* Laboratory rats who are fed beer live six times longer than those fed only water.
* Commercial beer making was established in 1200 AD in present-day Germany. In 1506, the German Purity Law is issued, specifying that beer ingredients must only be water, barley, wheat and hops. Bottling of beer started in 1605.
Bread
Sliced bread was patented in 1954.
Bourbon
Bourbon was first made by a Baptist minister from Bourbon County in Kentucky in 1789. That is where it got its name.
Bubble Gum
The reason why bubble gum is pink is because the inventor only had pink coloring left. Ever since then, the color of bubble gum has been predominantly pink.
Buffalo Wings
Buffalo wings, got their name because the spicy chicken wings originated in Buffalo, New York.
Budweiser Beer
Budweiser beer is named after a town in Czechoslovakia.
Carrots
Until the 16th century, carrots were black, green, red and purple - until a Dutch horticulturist discovered some mutant yellow seeds that produced a freaky orange color that caught on big, worldwide.
Chewing Gum
* The world's oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9,000 years old.
* Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Chocolate
Milk chocolate was invented by Daniel Peter, who sold the concept to his neighbour Henri Nestlé.
Coca-Cola
* When it originally appeared in 1886 - Coca Cola was billed as an "Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage".
* The formula for Coca-cola has never been patented.
* Coca-Cola was originally green.
* Many of the details we associate with Santa Claus were invented for a Coca Cola advertising campaign around 1890.
Coconuts
* Coconuts kill more people in the world than sharks do. Approximately 150 people are killed each year by coconuts.
* The coconut is the largest seed in the world.
Coffee
There are approximately 1,000 different chemicals in a cup of coffee, some of which have caused cancer in laboratory rats.
Consumption
* During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of about 6 elephants!
* Each year 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S.
* In a lifetime we spend the same amount of time eating as we do blinking. We spend about five years eating, and about five years with our eyes shut because we are blinking.
* On average, a person will spend about five years eating during their lifetime.
Corn Flakes
There are more nutrients in the cornflake package itself than there are in the actual cornflakes.
Cornish Game Hen
A Cornish game hen is really a young chicken, usually 5 to 6 weeks of age, that weighs no more than 2 pounds.
Cream
Cream does not weigh as much as milk.
Dishes (Largest)
The largest dish in the world, aside from ones specially created to break records, is "Stuffed Camel", served for Bedouin wedding feasts. Hard boiled eggs are stuffed into fishes, the fishes are stuffed into cooked chickens, the chickens are used to stuff a roasted sheep, and finally the sheep is put into a whole camel, and barbecued.
Dr. Pepper
The oldest major soft drink in America is Dr. Pepper, which originated in Waco, Texas in 1885.
Eggs
An egg that is fresh will sink in water, but a stale one won't.
Fortune Cookies
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America in 1918 by Charles Jung.
Gatorade
The name of the popular sports drink Gatorade was named for the University of Florida Gators where it was developed.
Ginger
Ginger has been clinically demonstrated to work twice as well as Dramamine for fighting motion sickness, with no side effects.
Guinness Beer
The bubbles in Guinness Beer sink to the bottom rather than float to the top like all other beers. No one knows why.
Hamburgers
During a trip to Asia in the early 1800s, a German merchant - it is said - noticed that the nomadic Tartars softened their meat by keeping it under their saddles. The motion of the horse pounded the meat to bits. The Tartars would then scrape it together and season it for eating. The idea of pounded beef found its way back to the merchant's home town of Hamburg where cooks broiled the meat and referred to it as it as Hamburg meat. German immigrants introduced the recipe to the US. The term "hamburger" is believed to have appeared in 1834 on the menu from Delmonico's restaurant in New York but there is no surviving recipe for the meal.
Herring
Herring is the most widely eaten fish in the world.
Hershey
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
Ice Cream
Ice cream was invented in 2000 BC by the Chinese.
Ketchup
* Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
* 4 tablespoons of ketchup has about the same amount of nutrition as a ripe tomato.
Lemons
1 pound of lemons contains more sugar than 1 pound of strawberries
Life Savers
The first Life Saver flavor, which was peppermint, was invented in 1912 and it was called Pep-O-Mint.
Molasses
There was a molasses flood in Boston on January 15, 1919 that killed 21 people and injured 150 people.
Nuts
Macadamia nuts are not sold in their shells because it takes 300 pounds per square inch of pressure to break the shell.
Pancake Mix
The first ready-mix food that was sold commercially was Aunt Jemima's pancake flour which was invented in 1889.
Pepper
Pepper was sold as individual grains during the Elizabethan times. The guards at the London docks had to sew up their pockets so they would not steal any of the pepper.
Pepsi Cola
* A can of Pepsi has 41 grams of sugar. This amount to about seven teaspoons of sugar.
* The original name for the soft drink Pepsi was "Brad's Drink."
Popcorn
Due to sugar shortages to make candy during World War II, movie theatre owners turned to popcorn, which is now the best selling snack at movie theatres today.
Popsicle
The Popsicle was invented by 11 year-old Frank Epperson in 1905. He left his drink outside with a stir stick in it and he noticed that it had frozen.
Restaurants
The world's oldest existing eatery opened in Kai-Feng, China in 1153.
Screwdriver
The 'Screwdriver' was invented by oilmen, who used the tool to stir the drink.
Rice
Rice is thrown at weddings as a symbol of fertility.
Soda Water
Soda water does not contain soda.
Spice
The most expensive spice in the world is saffron.
Stamps
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
Taste
Food can only be tasted if it is mixed with saliva.
Tea
* According to legend, tea originated in China when tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.
* Until the 19th century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia.
Tomatoes
There are over 4,000 varieties of tomato.
Trees
The only tree from which we eat the flower is the fig.
Turkey
Native Americans never actually ate turkey; killing such a timid bird was thought to indicate laziness.
Vegetables
The darker green a vegetable is, the more Vitamin C it contains.