Did you know that you can use food to improve your mood without even taking a single bite? How long would it take you to eat every kind of apple known to man? And why on earth do Eskimos keep fridges at home? You’ll find answers to these questions and more in this informative list of 24 fascinating facts about the foods we all have at home.
1. Frequent consumption of “junk food” affects the body in a similar way to Hepatitis. The effect the fats in such foods have on the liver leads to drastic changes in enzyme production.
2. It’s better to make your own spice mixes than buy store-bought. The reason is that manufacturers often use salt and cheaper ingredients to reduce costs.
3. There are more than 7,500 kinds of apples in the world. If you were to try and eat one species per day, it would take you over twenty years to be able to say you’ve tried them all.
4. If you want to improve your mood, try concentrating and thinking about your favorite food for a minute. The thought will cause your brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that, amongst various functions, also controls your feeling of pleasure.
5. In a recent statistical study conducted in the United States, it was found that the average human consumes approximately 80 tons of food in their lifetime. For comparison, that is the weight of a battle-ready tank.
6. There’s a reason Swiss chocolate is considered the best in the world. The Swiss are the world’s number one consumers of chocolate, with a yearly average of 10kg (22lbs) per person.
7. In 2014, German researchers managed to create conditions similar to those in the Earth’s core, compressing peanut butter into diamonds. While the diamonds were tiny and imperfect, it is still an impressive feat.
8. The only food that contains all the nutrients the body needs is breastmilk.
9. "Rare" meat can be hazardous to your health, but recent studies found that overcooked meat can be just as bad, causing diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Click here to learn more.
10. At the beginning of the 20th century, lobsters were considered cheap and subpar food. In the U.S., they were sometimes served to prisoners as punishment. Nowadays, you can find lobster dishes that can cost as much as $1,000.
11. Chicken is considered to be healthier than red meat, but since the 1970s, the fat levels of chicken breast have risen by 226%. Further research found that the protein value of chicken has decreased by 33%.
12. “Chinese” fortune cookies are actually an American invention. While a similar concept existed in 19th-century Japan, the famous fortune cookie was invented in San Francisco in the early 1900s.
13. The invention of the popsicle is attributed to an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson. The story claims that Frank forgot a glass of juice with a stirring stick on his porch on a cold night, only to discover the following morning that he had invented the popsicle.
14. That plain cucumber in your fridge is much more complex than you’d think. From a botanical perspective, it is a fruit, and from a culinary perspective it is a vegetable. It’s comprised of 96% water, has a very low caloric value, as well as healthy levels of potassium, vitamins and antioxidants, most of which can be found in its skin.
15. In most advertisements for milk, the white liquid you see is actually thinned-down white paint.
16. Of all of the food produced in the world every year, about 50% ends up in the garbage. Instead of being part of the problem, ask restaurants to let you take leftovers home, check the expiration date on products in your fridge, and always put less food on your plate than you think you’ll eat.
17. Did you know that Eskimos use refrigerators too? However, they use them to make sure their food doesn’t freeze.
18. Soft drinks are notoriously bad for you. They ruin your teeth, overload your system with sugar, and are even linked to loss of bone density.
19. In Brazil, peas are one of the most popular pizza toppings. In India, people eat pizza with ginger, in Pakistan with curry, and the Japanese love it with seafood and mayo.
20. 70% of the olive oil sold in the world is actually a blend of oils, and olive oil is not even the main ingredient in many of them.
21. Tea bags were invented by mistake. The first teabag was created to offer samples of tea to potential buyers.
22. In the past, chocolate was considered to be such a rare luxury that it was used as a form of currency by wealthy Aztecs in South America.
23. If you use soy sauce for cooking, you are probably getting too much sodium in your diet. Soy sauce (even the low-sodium kind) is often packed full of salts, which can damage your liver, and raise your blood pressure level.
24. Everyone knows that citrus fruits are an excellent source of vitamin C, but did you know that broccoli has double the amount of it than oranges?
