Food Facts for Kids
Tasty facts about the food we eat
Asparagus can make your wee smell different within 15 minutes of eating it. The odour comes from sulphur-containing compounds produced during digestion.
The colour of an egg yolk depends on what the hen eats. Hens fed marigold petals or red peppers lay eggs with deeper orange yolks.
Brazil nuts mostly come from Bolivia, not Brazil. The trees cannot be farmed easily because they depend on specific wild bees and a type of rodent to reproduce.
Tea is the most widely consumed drink in the world after water. An estimated three billion cups are drunk every single day across the globe.
The Maillard reaction is the chemical process that creates the delicious flavour and brown colour when you toast bread, sear meat, or roast coffee beans.
Sweetcorn is technically a member of the grass family. Each kernel is actually a single seed, and each plant can produce around 800 kernels.
Vanilla is the world's second most expensive spice after saffron because each vanilla orchid flower must be pollinated by hand and the pods take months to cure.
Despite its name, a coconut is not actually a nut. It is classified as a 'drupe' — a fruit with a fleshy outer part surrounding a hard shell with a seed inside.
Fermentation — the process that creates yoghurt, sourdough, and kimchi — uses beneficial bacteria to preserve food and can actually increase its nutritional value.
The first frozen dessert resembling ice cream was made in China around 200 BC, when a mixture of milk, rice, and snow was packed into ice.