23 Random Food Facts That Deserve A Spot In Your Brain

1.A chipotle pepper is just a dried and smoked jalapeño.

And an ancho chile is a dried poblano.

2.Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish have the same base.


Sour Patch Kids are just pumped into a different mold and finished with a sour coating.

3.“Double Stuf” Oreos don’t actually have twice the creme filling.


A math teacher crunched the numbers and concluded they only have 1.86x.

4.Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were invented by a janitor who was working at the Frito-Lay plant.

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Richard Montañez pitched his idea to Frito-Lay’s CEO in 1976 and went on to become an exec VP at PepsiCo. There’s even a movie in the works about his story.

5.Cilantro and fresh coriander are the same thing.

They’re just two different names to describe the same plant. (There are also coriander seeds — which come from the plant too, and you can find them whole or ground up into spices.)

6.Spam is named for the combination of the words “spice” and “ham.”

Despite the product containing neither of those things.

7.McDonalds nuggets come in four distinctive shapes.

This is “to ensure consistent cooking times for food safety in all McDonald’s restaurants”, according to McD’s.

8.Kit Kats are filled with broken Kit Kats.

The Kit Kats that get damaged during production are crunched up into a paste, then given a ~second life~ inside other Kit Kats.

9.Rhubarb leaves are poisonous in large doses.

The raw leaves contain oxalic acid, among other things. And if you eat a TON of them — or several pounds worth — it can be lethal.

10.Bananas are berries — and strawberries are not.

Botanically speaking, that is.

11.Honey never goes bad.

As long as you properly store it sealed and in a dry place.

12.Pound cake got its name because the original recipe contained one pound of each main ingredient.

That’s four pounds (!) total — of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.

13.Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi all come from the same plant.

Brassica oleracea was selectively bred over hundreds of years to create dozens of very different vegetables.

14.Allspice isn’t actually a mix of other spices.

Although it smells like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, Allspice is a fruit picked from a tree — then dried and sold either as whole “berries” or ground up into its own spice.

15.All Froot Loops technically taste the same, no matter what color they are.

I still like the red ones best, FWIW. ?

16.Asparagus grows straight out of the ground.

Read more: 21 Fruits And Veggies You Didn’t Know Grew Like That

17.In 2018, Nabisco redesigned its iconic animal crackers box after PETA flagged it.

The new design uncages the animals and puts them in the wild.

18.The biggest difference between jam and jelly? Jam is made with fruit — and jelly is made with fruit juice.


Jam is made with fruit, sugar, and often pectin (a thickener). Jelly is made with fruit juice, sugar, and pectin. Another way to remember it? Jam is chunky — it’ll have mashed fruit pieces in it; whereas jelly is a smooth spread.

19.Most raw oysters are still alive when you eat them.

In fact, oysters are stored under very regulated conditions because once they die, they are no longer considered safe to eat.

20.Red, yellow, and green bell peppers are all the same vegetable. They’re just at different stages of development.

Bell peppers also have more vitamin C than oranges.

21.Haribo green gummy bears aren’t lime or green apple flavored. (They’re strawberry.)

And the red ones, apparently, are raspberry. o.O

22.Loofahs — aka: shower scrubbers — are made from gourds.

Specifically: the (aptly-named!) sponge gourds and luffa gourds.

23.Tootsie Rolls start out as giant 13-pound logs that are then shaped down to their mini size.

And they’re still made using their original recipe from 1896.

What’s your favorite random food fact? Share in the comments!

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