Time for a little fun… I’ve come across a great post (albeit, a really long one) that reveals some interesting facts about common foods – facts that will amuse, bemuse and even (in some cases) nauseate you. Forthwith, then, I share with you a selection of the more sensational and fascinating ones…
Honey is the only unprocessed food that will never go bad. Some folks
cite Salt, Sugar and dry White Rice as also having eternal
shelf lives. But they are all processed.
First, though…
I want to stress that the following ‘food facts’ almost all pertain to processed foods, not to fresh-from-the-garden or -farm gate comestibles. That alone should signal to you that some of these ‘facts’ may also constitute reasons for not eating as much processed food as most European and North American diners consume in their regular dietary regimes these days.
Some selected curiosities – and monstrosities
The following are excerpted from a post at insider.com:
- Packaged shredded ‘Cheeses’ may contain cellulose – wood fibre; more commonly known as sawdust – to prevent them from clumping during shipping, storage and sitting on the shelf.
- Tomatoes were once thought to offer medicinal properties. Ketchup was originally developed as a cure for a whole range of ailments, including diarrhea.
- Likewise, Tomatoes were thought by some, as late as the 1700s, to be poisonous. Hence the name ‘Devil Apple’. No, they are not really cousins to Deadly Nightshade, and no, the fruit is not poisonous. Just don’t eat the leaves or stems.
- According to the Washington Post, “hamburgers are almost always a mishmash of many animals. The ground beef we buy at the supermarket is made of an unknown collection of muscle tissues.”
- Speaking of which, I’m sure many readers will remember ‘Pink Slime’, officially known as ‘lean finely textured beef’ (LFTB), ‘finely textured beef’ (FTB), and ‘boneless lean beef trimmings’ (BLBT). It’s a meat by-product added to Ground Beef as a filler or to reduce the overall Fat content of the product. A recent post at thecounter.com reported, Pink Slime is on a ‘come-back’ tour. It may contain all kinds of yukky-sounding stuff like cow heads and esophagi. It won’t make you sick, unless just reading about turns your stomach.
- Gummy Candies, Jelly Beans and Car Wax all contain the same ingredient – carnauba wax – to give them a shiny finish.
- Farmed Salmon is naturally white in colour. Fish farmers feed their Salmon pink foods to turn their flesh the colour customers expect to see.
- The Aztecs used Cocoa Beans as currency.
- Honey is the only unprocessed food that will never go bad. Its high acid and low moisture content make it a natural antibacterial agent.
- Most Wasabi you get at Sushi restaurants or in supermarkets is really just dyed Horseradish.
- Likewise, most Plum Sauce you get at restaurants and supermarkets is actually a mixture of Pumpkin Purée, Sugar, colouring and texturizers.
- Commercial laying hens today – which are fed special diets to promote Egg production – can lay an Egg every day or so. Free-range hens, though, like the hens of history, are more likely to lay an Egg every three days or so.
That’s just a sample of the fascinating food stories – and back stories – you’ll find in the Insider.com post. Not to mention some fascinating links that will keep you clicking around for hours. What better way to use some of that spare time you have thanks to the COVID-19 lock down?
My take
The good news is, if the foregoing moves you to partake of a healthier diet, that could help make you healthier, help you live longer, reduce the crushing burden on our health care sector, and make the world a better place in general.
Cheers!
~ Maggie J.