Food Facts for Kids
Tasty facts about the food we eat
Kumquats are the only citrus fruits you eat entirely — skin and all. Unlike oranges and lemons, the skin of a kumquat is sweet while the flesh inside is tart and sour.
The heat of chilli peppers is measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), invented by pharmacist Wilbur Scoville in 1912. A bell pepper scores 0, a jalapeño scores up to 8,000, and the world's hottest pepper tops 2 million SHU.
Sourdough bread is leavened by a living colony of wild yeast and bacteria called a 'starter.' Some bakeries have kept their starters alive for over 100 years, passing them down from generation to generation.
Purple and blue potatoes are native to the Andes mountains of Peru and Bolivia, where over 3,000 varieties of potato grow. The purple colour comes from anthocyanins, the same antioxidant found in blueberries.
Vanilla pods take over a year to fully develop after the orchid flower is pollinated. Each flower must be hand-pollinated within 12 hours of opening, which is why real vanilla is so expensive.
Ancient Egyptian workers who built the pyramids were paid partly in beer — up to four litres a day. Beer was safer to drink than water at the time because brewing killed harmful bacteria.
Bananas release a gas called ethylene as they ripen, which also causes nearby fruit to ripen faster. Separating bananas from the bunch and keeping them away from other fruit slows the ripening process.
Tacos have been eaten in Mexico since at least the time of the Aztecs, thousands of years before fast food chains popularised them. Tortillas were used as edible spoons to scoop up fish, beans, and insects.
Plain cranberries are so tart they are almost inedible raw. Most dried cranberries in shops are sweetened with apple or grape juice to make them palatable — without sweetening, they taste extremely sour.
In the UK, 'chips' means thick fried potato slices (like fries), while 'crisps' are the thin, crunchy snacks in a bag. In America, 'chips' refers to what the British call crisps, and 'fries' means what the British call chips.