Trivia: Forty Four Fantastic Food Facts

How about that alliteration huh? :-) Seriously, cheesy though it may be, I found 44 pretty cool facts about food. Just be thankful I didn’t drag it out even longer (think Peter Piper picked a peck…).

1. Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.
2. Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
3. The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
4. Half of the world’s population live on a staple diet of rice.
5. In France, people eat approximately 500,000,000 snails per year.
6. There are about 100,000 bacteria in one litre of drinking water.
7. Within 2 hours of standing in daylight, milk loses between half and two-thirds of its vitamin B content.
8. It Takes 3500 Calories To Make A Pound Of Fat!
9. Peanuts are used in the manufacture of dynamite.
10. It has been traditional to serve fish with a slice of lemon since the Middle Ages, when people believed that the fruit’s juice would dissolve any bones accidentally swallowed.
11. The Average Person Eats Almost 1500 Pounds Of Food A Year!
12. Milk chocolate was invented by Daniel Peter, who sold the concept to his neighbour Henri Nestlé.
13. An ounce of chocolate contains about 20 mg of caffeine.
14. TIP is the acronym for “To Insure Promptness.”
15. The world’s oldest existing eatery opened in Kai-Feng, China in 1153.
16. Three quarters of fish caught are eaten – the rest is used to make things such as glue, soap, margarine and fertilizer.
17. To make one kilo of honey bees have to visit 4 million flowers, travelling a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.
18. Spotted bananas are sweeter, with a sugar content of more than 20%, compared with 3% in a green banana.
19. There are more than 10,000 varieties of tomatoes.
20. Over the last 40 years food production actually increased faster than population.
21. Over 90% of all fish caught are caught in the northern hemisphere.
22. Approximately one billion snails are served in restaurants annually.
23. Vitamin A is known to prevent “night blindness,” and carrots are loaded with Vitamin A. One carrot provides more than 200% of recommended daily intake of Vitamin A.
24. Carrots have zero fat content.
25. Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.
26. In the 1950’s some 80% of chickens in Europe and the US were free-ranging. By 1980, it was only 1%. Today, about 13% of chickens in the West are free-ranging.
27. An onion, apple and potato all have the same taste. The differences in flavour are caused by their smell.
28. China uses 45 billion chopsticks per year. 25 million trees are chopped down to make them.
29. Chocolate is the number one foodstuff flavour in the world, beating vanilla and banana by 3-to-1.
30. Each American eats approximately 22 pounds of tomatoes yearly. Over 1/2 of the tomato consumption is in the form of catsup and tomato sauce.
31. The average U.S. dairy cow produces 22.5 quarts of milk each day. That’s about 16,000 glasses of milk per year – enough for about 40 people. One cow can give 200,000 glasses of milk in a lifetime.
32. Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza each day, or 350 slices per second.
33. Onions contain a mild antibiotic that fights infections, soothes burns, tames bee stings and relieves the itch of athletes foot.
34. A family of four could live for 10 years off the bread produced by one acre of wheat.
35. It takes just 40 days for most Americans to earn enough money to pay for their food supply for the entire year. In comparison with the 129 days it takes the average American to earn enough money to pay federal, state and local taxes for the year.
36. Reportedly, there are more than 1,750 “O’s” in a 15-ounce can of Spaghetti Os.
37. Native Americans never actually ate turkey; killing such a timid bird was thought to indicate laziness.
38. 1.5 billion cups of tea are enjoyed throughout the world every day.
39. Table salt is the only commodity that hasn’t risen dramatically in price in the last 150 years.
40. Burger King uses approximately 1/2 million pounds of bacon every month in its restaurants.
41. A study of 19,000 Americans found breakfast skippers are more likely to gain weight because they are more inclined to overcompensate for the loss of key nutrients at breakfast by eating more fat-rich, high-energy foods later in the day.
42. Beer is made by fermentation cause by bacteria feeding on yeast cells and then defecating.
43. Carrots were first cultivated in Afghanistan in the 7th century, and they started with yellow flesh and a purple exterior.
44. Spam stands for Shoulder Pork and hAM.