FIVE FUN FOOD FACTS!

Holla! Today I am back with more fun food facts that will blow your mind for sure! Shall we get started then? Here we go!

Common foods that are naturally radioactive include potatoes, bananas, sunflower seeds, kidney beans, Brazil nuts among others. So far the one that contains most radioactive is Brazil nut. The radium in Brazil nut doesn’t come from especially high levels of radium in the soil where the trees grow, but rather the very extensive root systems the tree develop, which cover a large area of the soil than most trees. Although Banana and Brazil nuts contains very little ionizing radiation, but they have enough to trigger false alarms in some radiation sensors used to detect illegal smuggling of nuclear material. *What?!*

The renowned Heinz has evolved from a small company to now a mega huge company selling multiple types of products. They are also famous for their tagline “57 varieties of Heinz”. Apparently, Henry Heinz came up with the slogan while riding on a train in New York City in 1892. As he was in the train, he spotted a shoe store advertisement that promoted “21 styles of shoes” and thought his company should have a similar slogan. He chose number 57 because he felt that it was a lucky number and didn’t mean anything in particular. Today, Heinz has created more than 5,700 of products.

Did you know the famous navel orange are all perfect clones of navel oranges of one another and guess what? They are all originated back to the same tree. In 1820, a mutation occurred in a group of sweet orange trees growing on the monastery in Bahia, Brazil. The mutation created a seedless orange that was much sweeter than the original citrus fruit. On top of that, the new species had an underdeveloped twin orange growing within the skin of each developed orange. Since navel orange is seedless, farmers couldn’t simply grow seedless oranges but have to amputate a budding from an existing navel orange and unite it with another tree trunk or root. This process is called grafting. Wow! So much information!

Here we go with the fourth fascinating food fact. All my live I keep on wondering why beets are red. So I found that beet are red because it consists of pigment which is called as betalain. The word betalain derived from Latin name of the common beet (Beta Vulgaris) from which betalains was first extracted. (It contains in different types of plants as well like petals of flowers, leaves, stems, roots and fruits)

However, it’s also  can totally depends on which type of betalain pigment and the concentration that is in a particular type of beet, it can vary in color from red to purple which is formerly known as betacyanins betalain pigments while for the yellow to orange color previously known as betaxanthins betalain pigments.

Beets also occasionally turn urines and poops into different color (some people digestive system unable to breakdown the pigment, so it passes through).  Betanins also acts as natural fungicide, which helps to protect plants and at the same time it functions as natural antioxidants and that’s why they are often used as food dye.

I’m pretty sure that most of you gonna love this fifth fact, as it is about how the calorie content of food is determined.  Food calorie (symbol: Cal, equiv: kcal) is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. The large calorie is thus equal to 1000 small calories or one kilocalorie (symbol: kcal).

Manufacturers will use bomb caloriemeter to calculate or to measure the calories. This started with placing the food source in a sealed container filled with water.  Then they will burn the food with electrical power.  Once the food is completely burned, the manufacturer will measure the calorie by measuring the water temperature and how many calories used.

 However, the manufacturers moved from this step as it is quite expensive and since the food consists of indigestible like fiber. The Nutrition Labelling and Education Act 1990, the y begins to introduce the Atwater System which will be an easier method to measure calories.

This method adds up the calorie available through the energy containing nutrients like protein carbohydrates, fats, and alcohols. They used standard reference tables for common foods based on their ingredients density.

For instance, a you are having a snack which consists of 5g protein, 10g of carbohydrates, and 15g of fat. Then label on the pack will read as 225 calorie or 225,000 calories (which is simplified to 225 calories) that always lead you towards misconception. So next time watch out what you eat so that you will not take excessive calories ended up being obese and to stay fit.

Anyway, tomorrow I will be sharing the remaining 5 food facts tomorrow, so stay tuned! Catch you guys tomorrow!