Fun Food Facts for Friday

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Here’s something fun for the weekend: some facts about foods that you probably didn’t know!

Cherrific!

The same chemicals that give tart cherries their color may relieve pain better than aspirin and ibuprofen in humans.
Eating about 20 tart cherries a day could reduce inflammatory pain and headache pain.
There are about 7,000 cherries on an average tart cherry tree (the number varies depending on the age of the tree, weather and growing conditions). It takes about 250 cherries to make a cherry pie, so each tree could produce enough cherries for 28 pies!
Today, in Michigan, there are almost 4 million cherry trees which annually produce 150 to 200 pounds of tart cherries.

Lettuce is a member of the sunflower family.
Darker green lettuce leaves are more nutritious than lighter green leaves.
Americans eat about 30 pounds of lettuce every year. That’s about five times more than what we ate in the early 1900s.
In the United States, lettuce is the second most popular fresh vegetable.
Almost all lettuce is packed right in the field.
About 25% of all iceberg lettuce is made into fresh cut salads.

The plant pigment that gives carrots and other vegetables their vivid orange color is beta-carotene.
Fruits and vegetables that are yellow/orange in color contain beta-carotene, and carrots are one of the richest in this nutrient. Our bodies convert beta-carotene into Vitamin A.
The bright orange color of carrots tell you they’re an excellent source of Vitamin A, which is important for good eyesight, especially at night. Vitamin A helps your body fight infection, and keeps your skin and hair healthy!

Blueberries are the second-most popular berry in the United States.
Michigan and New Jersey produce 66% of all the blueberries in the United States, followed by North Carolina, Oregon and Washington.
Over 200 million pounds of blueberries are grown every year in North America.
Blueberries are first picked by hand to gather the best of the early fruit. Later, if the fruit is to be mechanically harvested, a harvesting machine goes through the field and gently shakes each bush so only the ripe blueberries drop off.
Blueberries are a good source of Vitamin C and fiber.

In the U.S. in one year hens produce 6,657,000,000 dozen eggs—that’s 6.657 billion dozen! After these eggs are laid, about two-thirds are sold in the shell and one-third of them are broken—not by accident, but on purpose. (After the eggs are broken out of their shells, they can be made into liquid, frozen, dried and specialty egg products.)
The eggshell may have as many as 17,000 tiny pores over its surface. Through them, the egg can absorb flavors and odors. Storing them in their cartons helps keep them fresh!
Eggs age more in one day at room temperature than in one week in the refrigerator.
Occasionally, a hen will produce double-yolked eggs throughout her egg-laying career. It is rare, but not unusual, for a young hen to produce an egg with no yolk at all.
It takes 24 to 26 hours for a hen to produce an egg; there is 30 minutes between each egg-producing cycle.
About 240 million laying hens produce about 5.5 billion dozen eggs per year in the United States.
Egg yolks are one of the few foods that naturally contain Vitamin D.

There are over 500 different types of bananas. That means if you ate a different kind of banana every day, it would take almost a year and a half to eat every one!
Although generally regarded as a tree, this large tropical plant is really an herb. That means it does not have a woody trunk like a tree. The stalk is composed of leaf sheaths that overlap each other and grow from an underground stem called a rhizome.
The banana plant can grow as high as 20 feet tall. That’s as big as a two-story house!
Bananas are about 99.5% fat free.
Bananas are a great source of potassium. Potassium helps build muscle power and keeps your body fluids in balance.
Bananas are most likely the first fruit ever to be grown on a farm.

Pasta is one of America’s favorite foods. Last year, 1.3 million pounds of pasta were sold in American grocery stores. If you lined up 1.3 million pounds of 16 oz. spaghetti packages, it could circle the Earth’s equator almost nine times!
Noodles got their start in China, not Italy (as many people might think).
Pasta made its way to the New World through the English who found it while traveling through Italy.
The English made pasta by cooking it for about a half an hour and then smothering it with cream sauce and cheese. This was the beginning of macaroni and cheese!
America’s first large pasta factory was built in Brooklyn, New York in 1848 by a Frenchman who would spread out his spaghetti strands on the roof to dry in the sunshine.

Apples are a member of the rose family.
Washington state grows the most apples in the U.S.
The apples from one tree can fill 20 boxes every year.
Fresh apples float because 25 percent of their volume is air.
In the winter, apple trees need to "rest" for about 900-1,000 hours below 45 degrees Fahrenheit in order to flower and fruit properly.
If you grew 100 apple trees from the seeds of one tree, they would all be different.
Apples are high in fiber.
There are more than 7,000 varieties of apples grown in the world.

The name asparagus comes from the Greek language and means "sprout" or "shoot."
Asparagus is a member of the lily family.
Asparagus is related to onions, leeks, and garlic.
One of the most popular varieties of green asparagus is named after Martha Washington, the wife of George Washington.
California grows about 70% of all the asparagus grown in the United States.
More than 50,000 tons of asparagus are grown in California every year.

(With thanks to the Ag Day resource from the Agricultural Council of America.)