24 Food Facts That Will Make Rethink Your Next Meal

1. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi all come from the same plant! Karaidel / Getty Images 2. Scientists can turn peanut butter into diamonds. Buzzfeed "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. Medical Daily 4. Pringles once had a lawsuit trying to prove that they weren’t really potato chips. giphy.com 5. Mountain Dew is mainly just orange juice. pepsicobeveragefacts.com 6. Potatoes are actually 80% water and 20% solid. Heikerau / Getty Images 7. Chimichanga literally means "thingamajig" in Spanish. Gmnicholas / Getty Images 8. The bananas we eat today are clones. Glasslanguage / Getty Images 9. Cheez-Its contain paprika! It seems like a small, insignificant detail and yet it blows my mind on a regular basis. cheezit.com 10. Haribo green gummy bears aren't lime or green apple flavored, but strawberry! Fodor90 / Getty Images 11. There are two types of hot dog buns: regular and New England style. A real shocker for people from New England. Getty 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!). NBC 14. Shredded cheese has cellulose, which is a wood product (aka sawdust) so that it doesn't stick together. Bwfolsom / Getty Images 15. Eating lollipops is just swallowing flavored saliva. youtube.com 16. Hawaiian pizza was invented in...CANADA. Getty 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. Getty 18. Baby carrots are just regular carrots that have been shaved down to the bite-size pieces we see bagged in stores. youtube.com 19. I recently found out that Fritos only have three ingredients: corn, corn oil, and salt?! fritolay.com 20. The potentially fatal brain mushroom is considered a delicacy in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the upper Great Lakes region of North America. Flickr: etolane / Via Creative Commons 21. The Dunkin' Donuts in South Korea offer doughnut flavors such as Kimchi Croquette and Glazed Garlic. wzlx.cbslocal.com 22. Castoreum, which is used as the vanilla flavoring in candies, baked goods, etc., is actually a secretion from the anal glands of beavers. "Vanilla passion" by Catharina Demasi 23. Honey is made from nectar and bee vomit. Flickr: vibrantspirit / Via Creative Commons 24. The twists in pretzels are meant to look like arms crossed in prayer. Flickr: chiropractic / Via Creative Commons 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.