29 Weird Food Facts That Sound Fake But Are Real
BuzzFeed • • business
Key Points:
- Oysters are often eaten alive or very fresh due to their quick spoilage, while bananas are true berries, unlike strawberries or raspberries.
- Some foods have surprising origins, such as ketchup once being marketed as a medicine in the 1830s and cacao beans used as currency by the ancient Mayans.
- Certain foods contain unusual or potentially harmful components, like nutmeg's toxic compound myristicin, gelatin derived from animal parts, and the rare use of beaver secretion castoreum as vanilla flavoring.
- Many common foods have unexpected characteristics, including bouncing cranberries due to air pockets, popcorn popping from internal water pressure, and apples floating because they are 25% air.
- Real wasabi is rare and expensive, with most restaurants using horseradish substitutes, and Brazil nuts can naturally contain small amounts of radioactive elements like radium.
