1. Pound cake got its name from the original recipe, which called for a pound of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.
2. Canned mushrooms often contain maggots. FDA allows up to 19 maggots in a 100g can of mushrooms.
3. Shredded cheese contains cellulose powder, made from wood pulp, to keep it from clumping together.
4. Carmine, a red dye used in food products like candy and ice cream, is made from crushed cochineal insects.
5. Some ice cream brands use seaweed-derived carrageenan as a thickening agent.
6. Castoreum, used as a vanilla flavoring in some foods, is extracted from beaver anal glands.
7. The holes in Swiss cheese are formed by carbon dioxide released by bacteria during the fermentation process.
8. A typical fast-food burger may contain meat from hundreds of different cows.
9. Gelatin, found in products like jelly and gummy candies, is made by boiling animal skin, bones, and cartilage.
10. The average chocolate bar contains eight insect parts.
11. Caffeine is a natural pesticide found in coffee beans and tea leaves that kills or paralyzes insects trying to feed on them.
12. During the life of an average American, they will consume around 12 pubic hairs in fast food products.
13. A single can of soda contains approximately 10 teaspoons of sugar.
14. The world’s most expensive coffee comes from beans eaten and excreted by civet cats.
15. In ancient Rome, people used to induce vomiting with a feather after eating to make room for more food at feasts – a practice known as vomitoriums.
16. Vegetarian hot dogs can sometimes contain human DNA due to contamination during production.
17. The food industry uses crushed beetles or beetle juice as a natural food coloring called cochineal extract.
18. Refined white sugar is bleached with bone char from cow bones to achieve its pure white color.
19. There are more possible iterations of a deck of cards than there are seconds since the Big Bang, making it likely that no two fair decks have ever been shuffled to the same order.
20. Apples you buy at grocery stores may be up to 12 months old, due to controlled atmosphere storage methods.
21. Green, yellow, and red bell peppers are all the same vegetable – they are just at different stages of ripeness!
22. The sticker labels on fruits and vegetables are edible, as they’re required by law to be made from FDA-approved food-grade materials.
23. Eating pineapple can cause your tongue and mouth to feel sore because it contains an enzyme called bromelain that breaks down proteins in your mouth.
24. Azodicarbonamide, used as an additive in some bread products to make it whiter and fluffier, is also found in yoga mats and shoe soles.
25. Artificial raspberry flavoring can come from the anal gland secretions of a beaver, castoreum, which has been used as a food additive for centuries.
