Do you ever read an interesting fact and your world is forever changed? I love these little factoids, and though some are useless, I commit them to memory in hopes that someday I’ll be playing trivia and it will come in handy. Then I’ll be the team’s hero and they’ll pay for my meal out of gratitude.
Hey, I dream BIG. 😉
I thought today would be a fun day to share some of my favorites…
7. Honey is proven to be the only food that will not spoil. Good news for the jar of it that has been sitting in my pantry for almost a year now. Archeologists have even sampled honey found in ancient Egyptian tombs and found it to be edible.
Gross. …or very cool.
6. Formaldehyde is the disgusting liquid that is used to preserve dead laboratory animals. This chemical is what the artificial sweetener, aspartame, breaks down into after being eaten. I can’t remember the last time I knowingly ate any artificial sweeteners because of this little fact.
5. Adolf Hitler was a Vegetarian. Odd. Just… odd.
4. Worcestershire Sauce is made from dissolved fish. Anchovies are soaked in vinegar until they are completely dissolved, bones and all! Does this make it healthy? Omega 3s anyone?
3. The ginormous apples and oranges you’ve been seeing lately at grocery stores are pumped up due to added water volume, rather than fruit substance. This is a crop-yield technique by farmers designed to produce bigger fruit for more consumer appeal. I’ll stick to normal size fruits, thank you. Or mini versions. Check out this cute little pineapple!
2. Every time you lick a stamp, you are consuming 1/10th of a calorie. Too bad no one licks stamps anymore… but what about envelopes? I licked a ton yesterday went I sent out Christmas cards! I better get to the gym 😉
1. Refried Beans are only fried once. The name came from an error in translation. In Spanish, they are called frijoles refritos, meaning well fried beans. But since ‘re’ means ‘again’ in English, we translated it to ‘refried’. I know, I just rocked your world.
Do you know a little known fun food fact? Please share! 🙂
christina says
hahaha you might have to run for about 30 seconds to get burn off all those calories from licking envelopes!!
Carly says
I love these facts! Hah, except you may have scared my off my Splenda dependency.
Thanks for the fun post!
TheHealthyapron says
I love fun facts!
Kat says
The one about aspartame just seriously creeped me out and I’ve always wondered about the whole refried bean thing. Thanks for the entertaining info, I’m sure I’ll be telling everyone all day long haha.
Katie says
omg love this! And I did notice some apples at the store the other day that were HUGE!!!!!!!!!! Now I know why!
Paige @ The Gravy Boat says
I love honey for this! I don’t go through very much, so it’s nice to be able to keep it in my cabinet!
I had wondered about those freakishly large apples…too weird.
Maria @ Oh Healthy Day says
Interesting! I am SO glad that I gave up artificial sweetener now (not that I wasn’t proud of it before!)
Holly @ couchpotatoathlete says
Those are hilarious — I love the refried beans fact!
I thought maybe farmers were using Miracle Grow on my apples 🙂
Rachel says
Ugh, I already knew that about artificial sweetner but that doesn’t make it any less gross the second time around. I always cringe when I see people buying those huge bags of Splenda.
The honey thing was definitely the coolest part, I never knew that! And the Worcestershire sauce thing was cool but also disgusting. I don’t know if I can ever eat it again!
melissa says
Interesting stuff! Surely I should have a fact to add to your list, but I can’t think lately.
Caree @ Fit-Mama says
wow, those are some def interesting facts! Crazy about the arificial sweetners.. I try my hardest anymore to stay clear of them too.
I was wondering how the fruits were getting so big! I was hoping they weren’t injecting hormones into them, so thats good news!!
Melissa @ Be Not Simply Good says
#6 is extremely disturbing! 🙁
Pure2raw Twins says
Wow so many things I just learned off this post! Thanks 🙂 I hope all is well!
~Lori
Cynthia says
Love those facts! I don’t eat or drink anything with aspartame in it anyway. But that fact definitely scared me away from them!
Sara @ Nourish and Flourish says
These are so fun! I didn’t know that aspartame broke down into formaldehyde…Yuck! And it’s so funny you brought up refried beans…I was having a conversation about them with a friend the other day (don’t you wish you hung out with us?!) and we were asking that very question! Haha