70 Interesting Facts About Food That May Surprise You

Food is a part of everyone’s life. However, most people today don’t have enough time to cook for themselves or enjoy the dishes they eat. So, today we’re going to share some fun facts about food that might encourage you to head to the kitchen and cook something delicious for yourself and your family.

Interesting Facts About Food

1. One of Domino’s founders traded his shares to the other co-founder for a Volkswagen! Decades later, that co-founder sold the business for $1 billion. Quite a bit more than a car, right?
2. You may have heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And you believe it. But what if we told you that it’s just a marketing trick? General Foods made this claim in their 1944 advertising campaign to sell more Grape Nuts breakfast cereal.
3. You can’t boil an egg on a hot sidewalk. The highest recorded sidewalk temperature was 55 degrees Celsius. The temperature needed to cook an egg is 70 degrees Celsius. Plus, concrete isn’t a good conductor of heat.
4. If you want to lose weight, try having dinner earlier. It significantly increases the amount of fat burned during sleep.
5. The original colors of Margherita pizza match the colors of the Italian flag. Tomatoes are red, basil is green, and mozzarella is white.

   

6. Hot chocolate tastes better when served in orange cups. Scientists have proven this experimentally.
7. Christopher Columbus changed the diet in many countries. Without him, there would be no bananas in Ecuador, oranges in Florida, or pineapples in Hawaii.
8. There are more Indian restaurants in London than there are restaurants offering Indian cuisine in Delhi or Mumbai.
9. Americans consume 225 tons of peanut butter annually. Enough to cover half of the Grand Canyon.
10. When it comes to meat consumption, no country can compare to Australia. Each Australian eats 90 kilograms of meat every year! Americans come in second place.
11. A death row inmate in Texas ordered a very expensive last meal but didn’t eat any of it because he wasn’t “hungry.” After that, state lawmakers decided to limit the cost and quantity of last meals for inmates.
12. Low-frequency sounds enhance the bitter taste, while high-frequency sounds enhance the sweet taste. And when people listen to loud music, they drink more and faster.
13. Our compatriots love to show off their unusually shaped home-grown and foraged vegetables and fruits. In America, however, 40% of farm products are not sold because they deviate from typical shapes.
14. On August 10, 2015, NASA astronauts ate food grown in space. They grew red romaine lettuce.

    

15. California is the fifth-largest food supplier in the world.
16. Norman Borlaug was one of the most influential people in history, and he was an agricultural scientist.
17. Since 2015, it has been illegal to throw away food in Seattle. Food scraps must be given to the homeless, animals, or turned into compost. Businesses that break the law face a $50 fine, while individuals face a $1 fine.
18. 70% of the red meat consumed comes from goats, not cattle.
19. The amount of Nutella sold annually can cover the Great Wall of China eight times. It weighs as much as the Empire State Building.
20. How bad is fast food? Regular consumption affects the liver similarly to hepatitis! So, despite cooking being challenging and time-consuming, homemade meals are the better alternative.
21. This may seem strange, but Eskimos use refrigerators to keep food from freezing.
22. A bunch of bananas is called a hand, and a single banana is called a finger in English.
23. Women spend twice as much time cooking as men.
24. The first person to publish a cookbook was Fannie Merritt Farmer. The book was called “The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.”
25. Do you know the difference between herbs and spices? Herbs are the leaves of a plant, while spices are other parts of the plant (excluding the leaves).
26. Vegetables that grow underground, such as potatoes, beets, and carrots, should be covered with cold water when cooked. Those that grow above ground, such as cabbage, corn, and peas, should be covered with boiling water.
27. Gordon Ramsay lost to a prison cook in an onion-cutting competition! He offered the inmate a job in his restaurant after his release.
28. Some people suffer from the fear of cooking, known as mageirocophobia. The fear that peanut butter will stick to the roof of your mouth is called arachibutyrophobia.
29. Today, Americans spend almost 30 minutes cooking and about 5 minutes cleaning up. This is less than half the time they spent on cooking and cleaning in 1965.
30. Salted butter can be stored outside the refrigerator longer than unsalted butter because it is less vulnerable to bacteria.
31. Scientists claim that home-cooked food is rich in energy and easy on the stomach. It allows the stomach and intestines to shrink (as they don’t have to work as hard), and the brain to grow. Cooking is also linked to other areas, such as culture and education.
32. Americans spend more time watching others cook than cooking themselves.
33. Magic is directly related to cooking. This root lies in the Greek word “mageiros.” In Greek, it means butcher, cook, and priest.
34. In professional slang, the chef’s hat is called a toque. In Arabic, this word translates to “hat.” By the way, it was also the name of a women’s headgear in Russia in the 19th century.
35. The father of American cuisine is James Andrew Beard.
36. Americans spend less time cooking than any other country in the world.
37. Did you know that a blind girl participated in the Master Chef contest and even won it?
38. Fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco in the 1990s.
39. Nutrient-rich food is more expensive than unhealthy food.
40. The country with the lowest meat consumption in the world is India. An Indian consumes just over 3 kg of meat per year.
41. One of Alabama’s state symbols is the pecan. They also hold an annual state pecan festival.
42. Jelly and jam may look similar, but jam is made from whole fruits, while jelly is made from fruit juice.

    

43. Coriander refers to dried seeds, while cilantro refers to the leaves with stems. However, both come from the same plant – Coriandrum sativum.
44. The famous Cheetos chips were invented by janitor Richard Montañez in 1976.
45. Thanks to the presence of quinine, tonic water glows in the dark.
46. For us, a movie theater is associated with popcorn. But in Colombia, it’s replaced by dried ants, and in China, by dried salted plums.
47. The Dutch drink 2.5 cups of coffee every day. This is the highest rate in the world. Coffee lovers in Finland and Sweden consume 1.8 and 1.3 cups daily.
48. On average, one person in Turkey brews 1 kilogram of tea per year.
49. Pule is the most expensive cheese in the world. It is made from donkey milk and produced in Serbia. A kilogram of this cheese costs more than $1,000!
50. Nearly 50% of Americans over 20 years old eat at least one sandwich every day.
51. The country that consumes, produces, and exports the most chili peppers is India. But surprisingly, chili peppers are not native to this country. They were introduced in the 15th century. The hottest of this family, Bhut Jolokia, is also grown in India.
52. From botany, we know that plants are pollinated by bees. But with the fig tree, it’s different. For its flowering and fruiting, wasps are necessary. These insects crawl inside the male inflorescences (which people don’t eat), mate there, and lay eggs. Young females, crawling out, carry pollen. But in search of a future nursery, they may get inside a female inflorescence, pollinating it (these fruits eventually end up on store shelves). But the wasp can’t survive there and dies inside.
53. Human and banana DNA is 60% identical.
54. The taste of food also depends on the altitude at which a person eats.
55. You won’t believe it, but Mountain Dew contains orange juice. However, the amount is too small to be of any significant benefit.
56. If you suffer from bad breath, try chewing some coffee beans or drinking coffee. You’ll notice the bad smell disappears, as these beans prevent the bacteria that cause it.
57. The US Food and Drug Administration allows the presence of insects in certain food products. In 100 grams of chocolate, there may be about 60 (no more) insect fragments! In 100 grams of peanut butter, up to 30 insect fragments are allowed.
58. Ripe cranberries bounce like rubber balls when they fall on a hard surface!
59. The main source of antioxidants for Americans is coffee.
60. Rotten eggs float, while fresh eggs sink in water.
61. No one knows the origin of chocolate chip cookies.
62. Pineapple is called pineapple in English. Pine refers to a pine tree, and apple to an apple. However, this fruit has nothing to do with these plants. And there’s no such berry as a strawberry. It’s a colloquial name for large varieties of garden strawberries.
63. The well-known French fries in English-speaking countries are called French Fries. However, the dish was invented in Belgium, not France.
64. Fugu fish is an expensive dish and considered a delicacy in Japan. But if prepared incorrectly, the person who tried it may die. Therefore, chefs need to train for more than two years to be ready to prepare this dish.
65. Canned meat SPAM was invented in Minnesota. And in Hawaii, it is consumed more than in other states, per capita.
66. Water cannot expire. So why does bottled water have an expiration date? It’s the expiration date of the plastic bottle, not the water.
67. McDonald’s sells 2.5 billion hamburgers every year, meaning 75 hamburgers are sold every second, and 6.5 million every day.
68. Mexican and South American civilizations used chocolate as currency.
69. 25% of the world’s hazelnuts are used in the production of Nutella.
70. The most stolen food in the world is cheese. 4% of the world’s produced cheese is stolen. Cheese is so famous that there is even a black market for it.