“Coffee is the most popular beverage worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each year.”
https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/company/products/CoffeeConsFacts.aspx?Section=press
“It is estimated that more than 100 million Americans drink a total of 350 million cups of coffee a day.”
https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/company/products/CoffeeConsFacts.aspx?Section=press
Camel's milk does not curdle. And besides that, it’s good for you.
http://www.tiviski.com/frames.html
Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for President Ronald Reagan so he could have red, white and blue jelly beans at his 1981 inauguration. His favorite flavor was really licorice.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/jellybellies.html
[Stated “fact”: Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.] Hmmm… maybe. It could also be attributed to the sound of the chocolate being deposited but nobody really knows for sure – including the folks at Hershey’s.
http://www.hersheys.com/kisses/about/funfacts.asp
The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland's daughter, endearingly referred to as “Baby Ruth”.
http://www.babyruth.com/faqs.asp
Ketchup originally contained no tomatoes. It was simply a term for a sauce made from mushrooms or fish brine with added herbs and spices. Other popular ingredients were anchovy, oyster, lobster, walnuts, kidney bean, cucumber, cranberry, lemon and grape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup
Tomatoes, native to Central and western South America, were originally thought to be poisonous or unfit for eating by many in Italy, Britain and North America. Everybody had it all figured out by the early 1800’s…
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~samcox/Tomato.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato
Tomato seeds are not digestible by humans. They just pass right through…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato
Every person in the U.S. consumes about 80 pound of tomatoes (or tomato products) every year – or more according to some sources.
http://www.ctga.org/newctga/facts.htm
“Vegetable” is strictly a culinary term (not botanical) and is used to describe a wide variety of edible plant products. Basically, if it’s not a fruit-fruit (culinary fruit like apple, plum, etc.), a grain, nut, herb or spice, it’s probably referred to as a vegetable. And yep, that includes botanical fruits like cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable
You may have read somewhere that in the 1830’s, ketchup was sold as a medicine. Some of it might have been because about that time tomatoes were being touted by a few folks for their “medicinal” value. (Holy crap… I just used the word “touted” in a sentence. I think I’m overdoing this reference stuff…)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f01/smith.html
Despite what you might have heard, Coca-Cola was never green.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola
To check out more of the common myths about Coca-Cola, click on:
http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/
The first sliced bread was offered for sale by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, MO in 1928.
http://www.chillicothecity.org/bread.html
[Stated “fact”: Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil.] Well, sort of. Apparently pure honey is the only “natural” food that can be safely stored at “room temperature” for an extended period of time without becoming inedible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_butter
Beer was developed (or discovered) by the ancient Sumerians possibly as long as ten thousand years ago.
http://beeradvocate.com/news/stories_read/595
The drinking straw was very likely developed by these same Sumerians for drinking beer.
http://beeradvocate.com/news/stories_read/595
Some beers are produced using a substance obtained from fish swimbladders. That sounds pretty appetizing, huh? OK, would you accept red algae as a substitute?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass
Just for the heck of it, here is a list of vegan and non-vegan beers.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/geraint.bevan/Vegetarian_beers.html
The first Jell-O flavors way back in 1897 were strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon.
http://www.kraftfoods.com/jello/main.aspx?s=&m=jlo_history
At one time (briefly) there was even a cola flavored Jell-O (1942).
http://www.kraftfoods.com/jello/main.aspx?s=&m=history_pages/1940_50
Contrary to what you may have heard, animal horns and hooves are not normally used to make gelatin – the foundation for Jell-O and many other edible products.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin
Bananas don’t grow on trees – they grow on herbs (family Musaceae). India grows far more bananas than any other country in the world.
http://www.uga.edu/fruit/banana.htm
“Chiquita” by the way, means small or petite. Trust me on this…
A peanut is not a nut; it is a legume like peas and beans.
http://www.peanut-institute.org/PeanutFAQs.html
Around 2.4 billion pounds of peanuts are consumed every year in the U.S. About half of that is in the form of peanut butter.
http://www.peanut-institute.org/PeanutFAQs.html
“Approximately 3 billion pizzas are sold in the U.S. each year.”
http://www.dominos.com/Public-EN/Site+Content/Secondary/Inside+Dominos/Pizza+Particulars/
“Each man, woman and child in America eats an average of 46 slices (23 pounds) of pizza a year.”
http://www.dominos.com/Public-EN/Site+Content/Secondary/Inside+Dominos/Pizza+Particulars/
The first ice cream cone was invented by… by… OK, no one really knows. What likely happen at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (World’s Fair) in St. Louis, Mo though, was that someone may have run out of cups for his ice cream and someone else rolled up a zalabia (a large crisp wafer-like pastry originating in the Arabian Gulf area) into a cone shape to hold the ice cream. Anyway, the idea obviously caught on, didn’t it?
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200304/zalabia.and.the.first.ice-cream.cone.htm
Just so ya know, this same World’s Fair displayed the latest inventions including the airplane, the radio, the telephone switchboard, the silent movies – and included a display of a bear made from prunes…
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200304/zalabia.and.the.first.ice-cream.cone.htm
Speaking of ice cream, Baskin-Robbins holds the world record (officially) for the largest ice cream pyramid – 3,100 scoops of ice cream on May 18. 2000.
http://www.baskinrobbins.com/about/FunFacts.aspx
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