Food — Page 4

Lemon juice can prevent apples from browning.

Lemon juice contains ascorbic acid, which is an antioxidant. By covering cut apple with lemon juice, the ascorbic…

Coffee is a fruit.

Coffee beans are the seeds of the fruit of a plant of the genus Coffea. These fruits are red or purple berries…

Dark chocolate has more antioxidants than milk chocolate.

Dark chocolate, with a higher percentage of cocoa, has far more antioxidants than milk chocolate, because milk…

Olives are naturally bitter and need curing to be edible.

Raw olives contain oleuropein, an extremely bitter compound. That is why they must be cured in brine, water or…

The Yubari King melon from Japan can sell for thousands of euros.

The Yubari King melon is grown only in Yubari, Japan, and is considered a status symbol. A pair of perfect melons can…

The most expensive vegetable in the world is hop shoots.

Hop shoots are the most expensive vegetable in the world, with a price that can exceed 1,000 euros per kilogram. They…

The white truffle is one of the most expensive foods in the world.

The white truffle (Tuber magnatum) is found only in a few regions of Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. It is so rare that…

The avocado is botanically a fruit.

The avocado is a fruit, in fact a large berry with a single seed. It belongs to the same botanical family as cinnamon…

Fugu, a Japanese fish, contains a deadly poison.

Fugu (pufferfish) contains tetrodotoxin, a poison that can be fatal if ingested. Only licensed chefs in Japan can…

Casu marzu is an Italian cheese with live fly larvae.

Casu marzu, a traditional cheese from Sardinia, is left in the open for the cheese fly to lay its eggs. The larvae…

Surstromming is considered one of the foods with the strongest smell in the world.

Surstromming is a Swedish fermented herring that undergoes a fermentation process producing acetic acid, propionic…

Tea contains theanine, an amino acid that promotes relaxation.

Tea, especially green tea, contains theanine, an amino acid that crosses the blood-brain barrier and promotes a state…

The acidity of olive oil is measured in oleic acid.

The acidity of olive oil is expressed as a percentage of free oleic acid. Extra virgin olive oil has an acidity of…

Blueberries owe their colour to a pigment called anthocyanin.

Blueberries contain anthocyanins, water-soluble pigments that give the fruit its blue-purple colour. These substances…

Honey crystallises fastest between 10 and 14 degrees Celsius.

Honey crystallises fastest at temperatures between 10 and 14 degrees Celsius. At higher temperatures, crystallisation…

The art of Neapolitan pizzaiolos is UNESCO Intangible Heritage.

The traditional art of Neapolitan pizzaiolos was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2017…

The Champagne region produces about 300 million bottles per year.

The Champagne region in France has about 34,000 hectares of vineyards and produces about 300 million bottles of…

Umami was discovered by a Japanese chemist in 1908.

Umami, the fifth basic taste, was identified in 1908 by the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda, who associated it with…

The croissant was invented in Austria.

The croissant, despite being a symbol of France, was invented in Vienna, Austria. It was originally a crescent-shaped…

There are more than 300 varieties of honey in the United States.

There are more than 300 varieties of honey in the United States, each with a unique colour and flavour determined by…

The Scoville scale measures the heat of chilli peppers.

The Scoville scale, created by chemist Wilbur Scoville in 1912, measures the concentration of capsaicin in peppers…

White chocolate is not technically chocolate because it contains no cocoa solids.

White chocolate is made only from cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, without the cocoa paste that gives dark and milk…

The cinnamon we consume is actually the dried inner bark of a tropical tree called Cinnamomum.

The spice is obtained by removing the outer bark and scraping off the thin inner layer, which naturally curls into…

Chocolate was originally a bitter and spicy beverage consumed by Mesoamerican civilizations, not a sweet treat.

The Mayans and Aztecs prepared cocoa with water, spices, and sometimes chili peppers, valuing it so much that the…