TEN FREAKY FOODIE FACTS
Food, glorious food: it’s a freaky and fascinating world full of jaw-dropping titbits of fascinating information, so here are ten facts that you may not have been aware of!
Almonds aren't really nuts at all.
Technically, almonds are actually the seeds of a flower, Prunus amygdalus, which is related to the botanical families of both roses and orchids.
The amount of bread we waste is shocking...
Figures recently released by a major supermarket chain suggest that 44% of all bread produced in the UK is wasted. Bread made with a denser flour such as barley will stay fresh for longer – and tastes wonderful toasted!
Brazil nuts only grow in the wild.
Brazil nuts can’t be farmed, and rely on two animals for their existence. One is the bright blue Euglossa Orchid bee, which is the only insect to pollenate the trees. The other is the agouti, a large rodent with teeth strong enough to gnaw through the hard, thick nut pod. When it’s too full up to eat any more, it buries its leftover nuts, and when it forgets where they are, they often grow into new trees. A great example of natural symbiosis – with a very tasty result!
Despite its robust heat, the wasabi plant is super-sensitive.
The wasabi plant, which gives us the fiery green paste that accompanies sushi, can’t handle direct sunlight. It thrives best in the wet, misty climate of Japan’s mountain regions, where it grows in stream beds. Because of its precise requirements, it’s hugely difficult to farm on a commercial basis.
Look out - weaponised chillies!
The Indian army is currently developing ‘chilli grenades’ for dispersing unruly crowds, made with the bhut jolokia, an awesomely hot chilli 200 times stronger than a jalapeño. Here at Healthy Supplies, we prefer the flavoursome, smokey and mercifully milder qualities of our wonderful range of Mexican chillies.
If you’re making fishcakes any time soon, you might like to bear in mind that tinned fish is actually healthier than fresh fish, as long as the bones are included. As tinned fish is cooked in the tin in pressure cookers, the bones are soft enough to eat, whereas they’re discarded – along with their calcium – when the fish is fresh.
Every cashew nut is one half of a double act.
Every single cashew nut grows attached to a ‘cashew apple’, whose flesh can be eaten. Its juice is often made into a sweet drink when the nut is harvested, but both flesh and juice are very perishable and can’t be stored for long, which is why they’re only consumed fresh at the source. Strangely, the actual cashew nut is the real fruit of the tree, making the cashew apple a byproduct, or ‘false fruit’.
Eating cacao can increase levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain that promote a sense of well-being. And the same brain chemical that is released when we experience deep feelings of love – phenylethylamine – is found in chocolate.
'Fresh' supermarket apples may be over a year old.
The major supermarkets use a chemical called 1-methylcyclopropene, along with nitrogen-filled warehouses, to inhibit the release of the natural ‘ripening gas’ ethylene, which means when you buy naturally-dried apple rings, they may well have been picked more recently than the supposedly fresh ones on the shelves of your local supermarket!
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