Fun food facts

All fun food facts

• Botanically, bananas are berries, but strawberries are not.Source: Botany: a berry develops from one flower with one ovary
• Peanuts aren't nuts. They are legumes, like peas and beans.Source: USDA
• Sealed honey can last for thousands of years. Pots of it have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs.Source: Smithsonian Magazine
• Apples float in water because about a quarter of an apple is air.Source: Food science texts
• A pineapple takes about 18 to 24 months to grow.Source: University of Hawaiʻi
• Cashews grow on the outside of a fruit called the cashew apple.Source: Food and Agriculture Organization
• Early cultivated carrots were purple or yellow. Orange carrots became common after Dutch growers bred them in the 1600s.Source: World Carrot Museum
• White chocolate contains no cocoa solids, only cocoa butter, sugar and milk.Source: US FDA standard of identity
• In colonial America, lobster was cheap food, given to servants and prisoners.Source: Smithsonian Magazine
• A single piece of spaghetti is called a spaghetto.Source: Italian grammar
• Ripe cranberries bounce. Farmers have used bounce tests to sort them.Source: Ocean Spray / cranberry growers
• Most "wasabi" served outside Japan is horseradish and mustard dyed green.Source: Smithsonian Magazine
• The potato was the first vegetable grown in space, in 1995.Source: NASA and University of Wisconsin
• Birds can't feel the heat of chilli peppers, so they happily eat them and spread the seeds.Source: Tewksbury and Nabhan, Nature, 2001
• Cucumbers are about 95% water.Source: USDA
• A strawberry has about 200 seeds on the outside.Source: California Strawberry Commission
• Chocolate is poisonous to dogs because of a chemical called theobromine.Source: American Kennel Club
• Avocados don't ripen on the tree. They only start softening after being picked.Source: California Avocado Commission
• Ketchup leaves a glass bottle fastest if you tap on the "57" on the neck, not the bottom.Source: Heinz