More Fun Food Facts – 7/15/25

I thought I would share some more fun food facts with you again. I love pulling up these fun food facts. You just never know what you might learn, while having a bit of fun at the same time. 🙂

1. Chocolate milk – I always thought chocolate milk was a relatively new American creation. But I am wrong. It turns out it is a creation with both Irish and Jamaican roots instead. Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish botanist and physician, was spending some time in Jamaica in the early 1700’s and noticed the locals drinking a concoction made of milk and chocolate. They added the milk to the chocolate to make it more palatable. The Jamaicans were brewing “a hot beverage brewed from shavings of freshly harvested cacao, boiled with milk and cinnamon” as far back as 1494. And chocolate has been known to humans as far back as 350 B.C. It’s hard to believe that no one before Sloane thought to put milk in it. When Dr. Sloane brought back the idea of mixing milk and chocolate together to Europe, initially it was sold as a type of medicine.

2. Which is more dangerous – sharks or vending machines? Poor sharks get such a bad rap. People think they are man-eaters, but they really are NOT. Vending machines are much more deadly than sharks. We are twice as likely to be killed by a vending machine than a shark. For the most part, sharks really DON’T like us and are more afraid of us than we are of them. The yearly risk (in the United States) of dying from a shark attack is roughly 1 in 250 million. In contrast, the yearly risk of dying from a vending machine accident is roughly 1 in 112 million. Coconuts kill more people than sharks do too. People were 15 times more likely to be killed by falling coconuts than by a shark. Horses, cows and crocodiles kill way more people than sharks on an annual basis as well. Horses kill about 20 people a year and cows kill about 22. Crocodiles gobble up 1,000 people a year.

3. Honey has been a favorite sweetener all over the world for 1000’s of years. But do you know how it is made?

Honey is actually bee vomit. WHAT????? Unlike many other bees, honeybee species don’t hibernate in winter. Instead, they stay active in their hives. During the coldest months, honeybees cluster together to keep warm and survive on the sweet substance that they have been hoarding for weeks in advance. That substance is honey.  All of the bees in a hive benefit from the honey haul, but the job of honey production lies with the female worker bees, according to biologists at Arizona State University. These forager bees fill their stomachs with nectar from flowers before returning to the hive to convert it into honey. He said worker bees will fly up to fly up to 3.1 miles (5 km) miles in search of flowers and nectar, visiting between 50 and 100 flowers per trip. “Nectar is the main ingredient for honey and also the main source of energy for bees. Using a long straw-like tongue called a proboscis, honey bees suck up nectar droplets from the flower’s special nectar-making organ, called the nectary. “When the nectar reaches the bee’s honey stomach, the stomach begins to break down the complex sugars of the nectar into more simple sugars that are less prone to crystallization, or becoming solid. This process is called ‘inversion.'”

4. Popsicles are summer time favorites with kids everywhere. In fact they were invented by an 11-year kid. Back in 1905, a San Francisco Bay Area kid by the name of Frank Epperson accidentally invented the summertime treat. He had mixed some sugary soda powder with water and left it out overnight. It was a cold night, and the mixture froze. In the morning, Epperson devoured the icy concoction, licking it off the wooden stirrer. He declared it an Epsicle, a portmanteau of icicle and his name, and started selling the treat around his neighborhood for 5 cents a piece. Buoyed by this success, Epperson applied for a patent for his “frozen confection of attractive appearance, which can be conveniently consumed without contamination by contact with the hand and without the need for a plate, spoon, fork or other implement” in 1924. Eventually, Epperson’s children urged him to change the ice pop’s name to what they called it: a Pop’s ‘Sicle, or Popsicle.

Today, there are endless possibilities to popsicles. Just use your imagination.

5. Yucatan Avocados are the size of a football, or even larger. They can be over 6 lbs each. That’s a BIG avocado!

Yucatan avocados vs. regular avocados. Holy Guacamole!

Hope you have fun with these. I love them and I love to share them with you too. Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay cool, stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.