24 Food Facts That Will Make Rethink Your Next Meal

1. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi all come from the same plant! 2. Scientists can turn peanut butter into diamonds. "Understanding the way diamonds are formed deep in the Earth could explain how life evolved on our planet. So a team in Germany are attempting to forge the gemstones themselves, from carbon dioxide – and peanut butter. David Robson reports." (BBC) 3. When you eat figs, technically, you're also eating wasps. Figs are pollinated by female wasps, who lose their wings in the process of pollination. The wasp has no way to get out of the fig and so they die inside, and then the fig's enzymes break down and dissolve the wasp. 4. Pringles once had a lawsuit trying to prove that they weren’t really potato chips. 5. Mountain Dew is mainly just orange juice. 6. Potatoes are actually 80% water and 20% solid. 7. Chimichanga literally means "thingamajig" in Spanish. 8. The bananas we eat today are clones. 9. Cheez-Its contain paprika! It seems like a small, insignificant detail and yet it blows my mind on a regular basis. 10. Haribo green gummy bears aren't lime or green apple flavored, but strawberry! 11. There are two types of hot dog buns: regular and New England style. A real shocker for people from New England. 12. Strawberries aren't berries, but bananas are! Despite its name, the strawberry isn't a true berry. Neither is the raspberry or the blackberry. But the banana, it turns out, is a berry, scientifically speaking, as are eggplants, grapes and oranges. (Live Science) 13. Pineapple juice can help tenderize meat (thank you, Food Wars!). 14. Shredded cheese has cellulose, which is a wood product (aka sawdust) so that it doesn't stick together. 15. Eating lollipops is just swallowing flavored saliva. 16. Hawaiian pizza was invented in...CANADA. The Hawaiian pizza, which has sent the world into a craze about pineapples going on pizza, was invented in my little town, the town that literally nothing ever happens in — Chatham, Ontario. 17. Ice cream sometimes contains a form of seaweed in it (as a thickening agent) called red algae. 18. Baby carrots are just regular carrots that have been shaved down to the bite-size pieces we see bagged in stores. 19. I recently found out that Fritos only have three ingredients: corn, corn oil, and salt?! 20. The potentially fatal brain mushroom is considered a delicacy in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the upper Great Lakes region of North America. 21. The Dunkin' Donuts in South Korea offer doughnut flavors such as Kimchi Croquette and Glazed Garlic. 22. Castoreum, which is used as the vanilla flavoring in candies, baked goods, etc., is actually a secretion from the anal glands of beavers. 23. Honey is made from nectar and bee vomit. 24. The twists in pretzels are meant to look like arms crossed in prayer. Credits: buzzfeed.com and buzzfeed.com What other foods do you know about that we might want to know about? Share this story on Facebook with your friends.