Doodlebrary

Doodlebrary

• Certainly! Here’s a list of 50 amazing and interesting facts about food:

1. Honey never spoils and has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs still perfectly edible.
2. The world’s most expensive coffee is made from beans eaten and excreted by civets (kopi luwak).
3. Bananas are berries, while strawberries are not.
4. The hottest chili pepper in the world is the Carolina Reaper.
5. The world’s most expensive spice by weight is saffron.
6. The durian fruit is so pungent that it’s banned in many public places in Southeast Asia.
7. There are more possible iterations of a game of chess than there are atoms in the known universe, a fact known as the “Shannon number.”
8. Casu marzu is an Italian cheese filled with live insect larvae.
9. The heaviest fruit in the world is the jackfruit.
10. Apples are 25% air, which is why they float in water.
11. The largest pizza ever made weighed over 26,000 pounds.
12. The world’s most widely consumed meat is pork.
13. The world’s largest food fight, La Tomatina, takes place in Spain annually.
14. The spiciest part of a chili pepper is the white membrane, not the seeds.
15. The world’s oldest known recipe is a 3,900-year-old Sumerian beer recipe.
16. The world’s most popular spice is black pepper.
17. Chocolate was once used as currency by the Aztecs and Mayans.
18. Carrots were originally purple and not orange.
19. Sushi doesn’t mean “raw fish”; it refers to vinegared rice.
20. Pineapples take two years to grow.
21. Some cheeses, like Roquefort and Stilton, are intentionally aged with mold.
22. A watermelon is both a fruit and a vegetable.
23. The world’s largest food company is Nestlé.
24. There are more possible combinations of pizza toppings than there are atoms in the observable universe.
25. The world’s largest producer of wine is Italy.
26. The first recorded use of the word “sandwich” comes from 18th-century England.
27. The world’s most popular fruit is the tomato.
28. In South Korea, they have an ice cream flavor called “raw horse flesh.”
29. The Guinness World Record for the most hamburgers eaten in three minutes is 12.
30. Cucumbers are 96% water.
31. Honey is the only food that never spoils.
32. McDonald’s serves approximately 69 million customers daily.
33. The first chocolate bar was produced by Joseph Fry in 1847.
34. The world’s oldest known cookbook is “Apicius,” from ancient Rome.
35. Onions make you cry because they release a gas that irritates your eyes.
36. A single spaghetti strand is called a “spaghetto.”
37. The most expensive pizza in the world costs over $12,000 and includes caviar and lobster.
38. The world’s hottest pepper, the Carolina Reaper, can reach over 2.2 million Scoville Heat Units.
39. Some cheeses, like Parmesan, can age for years or even decades.
40. The most stolen food item in the world is cheese.
41. The largest exporter of bananas in the world is Ecuador.
42. The first recorded use of the word “coffee” comes from 15th-century Yemen.
43. The world’s largest tomato weighed over 7 pounds.
44. The “hot” in “hot dog” refers to its temperature, not spiciness.
45. The world’s most expensive burger, the “FleurBurger 5000,” costs $5,000 and includes a bottle of wine.
46. The world’s oldest wine, dating back to 325 B.C., was discovered in a Roman tomb.
47. Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, after oil.
48. The world’s largest ice cream cone weighed over 2,500 pounds.
49. The world’s largest lobster weighed over 44 pounds.
50. In the U.S., the average person consumes about 1,996 pounds of food per year.

• These facts showcase the incredible diversity and history of the food we consume every day.