Random Bizarre Food Facts That Will Make You Rethink Your Eating Habits (15 items)

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  (#14) Sweet potato

  • Food

  Those "yams" you pick out at the supermarket are probably sweet potatoes. It's a common misnomer to call them yams, yet nobody calls yams sweet potatoes. If it's orange, and looks a lot like the kind of potato you're used to, then it's probably a sweet potato. If it has dark, bark-like skin, and is starchy on the inside, like a potato, then it is very likely a yam. Some have red or purple interiors.

  There are roughly 200 varieties of yams and none of them grow in the US, so it is very likely that when you go out to get yams, you're not getting yams, but sweet potatoes. 
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  (#7) Apple

  • Food

  The American apple was never meant to be eaten. It was brought over to Jamestown for one reason: cider. People loved cider. And because they loved it so much, they would have it with every meal (with some diluted glasses of cider for the kids, so that they wouldn't get too drunk at the dinner table). They drank cider mainly because it was safer to drink than any nearby water sources. So, most people grew their own apples. One man with 2,500 apple trees claimed that his trees were more valuable than 15,000 pounds of tobacco. This is how much people loved cider. 

  And then, Thomas Jefferson went to France where he was given "Ralls Benet" apple cuttings for him to grow in the US, which he then gave to a nursery in Virginia. The result was a "better" apple that people suddenly started just eating. It was nowhere near the sweetness of the apples you eat today. Japanese scientists crossed the Ralls Benet apple with the Red Delicious, and the result was what people call the popular "Fuji" apple.  
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  (#3) Mustard Seeds Are 'Eye Of Newt'

  At this point, it's ubiquitous to have a witch character brewing some kind of evil potion and include an "eye of newt." Your entire childhood, you probably thought that eye of newt was an actual eye from an actual newt. It's actually not. As it turns out, witches wanted to deter people from also practicing witchcraft, so they gave all these fairly common herbs and spices real gross names on purpose. That is how the mustard seed, a common ingredient, came to be known as the eye of newt. The first place to use this name for the mustard seed was in Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

  Here's a breakdown of some more herbs and spices that might have other, more witch-like names: 

  • Toe of Frog = Buttercup (the flower)
  • Adders Fork = Adders-Tongue (an adder is a snake, but an adders-tongue is just a leafy plant)
  • Tongue of Dog = Houndstongue (another flower)
  • Wool of Bat = Holly Leaves (like at Christmas!)
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  (#9) Chocolate

  • Food

  The Aztecs couldn't grow cacao leaves, but boy, did they love chocolate. In fact, they loved chocolate so much that the cacao plant alone became an important commodity. Aztec rulers even accepted cacao as "tribute," which was an early form of taxes. They would demand cacao of their conquered peoples and of ordinary citizens for the "tribute" owed to the rulers. 
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  (#1) The Popsicle Was Originally Invented By A Boy Who Was 11

  The Popsicle™ was invented by an 11-year-old boy in San Francisco in 1905. His name was Frank Epperson and he left a cup of powdered soda, water, and a stirring stick on the porch during a very cold winter. Epperson didn't remember the cup until after the cold weather had already frozen over his soda. When he discovered it the next morning, he did what any curious boy would do: he licked it. Thus, the Popsicle™ was invented.

  For eighteen years, Epperson sold the dessert around his neighborhood exclusively. He decided to expand his market in 1923 and debuted his popsicle at a park in Alameda, CA, and people loved it. He originally called it an "Epsicle," naming the food after his own stupid childhood mistake, but his kids called it "Pop's 'sicle," and they eventually convinced him to change the name to Popsicle™. 
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  (#15) Canola Oil Is Short For Canadian Oil

  Believe it or not, Canola oil is actually short for "Canada" and "Oil." During World War II, the import of rapeseed oil to North America was blocked. Rapeseed oil was used as fuel for steam engines and ships, so demand started increasing. The Rapeseed Association of Canada started producing more oil and expanded their research into the seed. 

  Eventually, they created an edible rapeseed oil. They decided to name it "Canola oil" by compounding Canada to "Can" and adding "ola" (which is derived from the Latin oleum for oil) at the end to mirror other popular oils on the market like "Mazola." 

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