Food Trivia | 100 did you know trivia & facts about Food [Part 1]

We can’t live without food. Actually, we can survive only for a week with any nutrition to our body except water. But, food is important.

Do you know everything there is to know about food? How about finding out some trivia and facts about it?

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism
Food is usually of plant or animal origin
It contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals
The substance is ingested by an organism
It is assimilated by the organism’s cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth
Historically, humans secured food through two methods: hunting/ gathering and agriculture
These two methods gave modern humans a mainly omnivorous diet
Humanity has created numerous cuisines and culinary arts
These include a wide array of ingredients, herbs, spices, techniques, and dishes
Today, the majority of the food energy required by the ever-increasing population of the world is supplied by the food industry
Food safety and food security are monitored by agencies like the International Association for Food Protection, World Resources Institute, World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and International Food Information Council
They address issues such as sustainability, biological diversity, climate change, nutritional economics, population growth, water supply, and access to food
The right to food is a human right derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
This right recognizes the “right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food”
As well as the “fundamental right to be free from hunger”
Most food has its origin in plants
Some food is obtained directly from plants
Even animals that are used as food sources are raised by feeding them food derived from plants
Cereal grain is a staple food that provides more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop
Corn, wheat, and rice account for 87% of all grain production worldwide
Most of the grain that is produced worldwide is fed to livestock
Some foods not from animal or plant sources include various edible fungi, especially mushrooms
Fungi and ambient bacteria are used in the preparation of fermented and pickled foods like leavened bread, alcoholic drinks, cheese, pickles, kombucha, and yogurt
Another example is blue-green algae such as Spirulina
Inorganic substances such as salt, baking soda and cream of tartar are used to preserve or chemically alter an ingredient
Many plants and plant parts are eaten as food and around 2,000 plant species are cultivated for food
Many of these plant species have several distinct cultivars
Seeds of plants are a good source of food for animals and humans
They contain the nutrients necessary for the plant’s initial growth, including many healthful fats, such as omega fats
In fact, the majority of food consumed by human beings are seed-based foods
Edible seeds include cereals (corn, wheat, rice), legumes (beans, peas, lentils) and nuts
Oilseeds are often pressed to produce rich oils
Some of the most known ones are sunflower, flaxseed, rapeseed (including canola oil), sesame
Seeds are typically high in unsaturated fats and, in moderation, are considered a health food
However, not all seeds are edible
Large seeds, such as those from a lemon, pose a choking hazard
While seeds from cherries and apples contain cyanide which could be poisonous only if consumed in large volumes
Fruits are the ripened ovaries of plants, including the seeds within
Many plants and animals have coevolved such that the fruits of the former are an attractive food source to the latter
This is because animals that eat the fruits may excrete the seeds some distance away
Fruits, therefore, make up a significant part of the diets of most cultures
Some botanical fruits are eaten as vegetables
This includes tomatoes, pumpkins, and eggplants
Vegetables are a second type of plant matter that is commonly eaten as food
These include root vegetables (potatoes and carrots), bulbs (onion family), leaf vegetables (spinach and lettuce), stem vegetables (bamboo shoots and asparagus), and inflorescence vegetables (globe artichokes and broccoli and other vegetables such as cabbage or cauliflower)
Animals are used as food either directly or indirectly by the products they produce
Meat is an example of a direct product taken from an animal
Food products produced by animals include milk produced by mammary glands, which in many cultures is drunk or processed into dairy products (cheese, butter)
In addition, birds and other animals lay eggs, which are often eaten
Bees produce honey, a reduced nectar from flowers, which is a popular sweetener in many cultures
Some cultures consume blood
Sometimes in the form of blood sausage, as a thickener for sauces, or in a cured, salted form for times of food scarcity
Others use blood in stews such as jugged hare
Some cultures and people do not consume meat or animal food products for cultural, dietary, health, ethical, or ideological reasons
Vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees
Vegans do not consume any foods that are or contain ingredients from an animal source
Adulteration is a legal term meaning that a food product fails to meet the legal standards
One form of adulteration is an addition of another substance to a food item in order to increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared form
This technique may result in the loss of actual quality of food item
These substances may be either available food items or non-food items
Among meat and meat products some of the items used to adulterate are water or ice, carcasses, or carcasses of animals other than the animal meant to be consumed
Camping food includes ingredients used to prepare food suitable for backcountry camping and backpacking
The foods differ substantially from the ingredients found in a typical home kitchen
The primary differences relate to campers’ and backpackers’ special needs for foods that have appropriate cooking time, perishability, weight, and nutritional content
To address these needs, camping food is often made up of either freeze-dried, precooked or dehydrated ingredients
Many campers use a combination of these foods
Freeze-drying requires the use of heavy machinery and is not something that most campers are able to do on their own
Freeze-dried ingredients are often considered superior to dehydrated ingredients
However, because they rehydrate at camp faster and retain more flavor than their dehydrated counterparts
Freeze-dried ingredients take so little time to rehydrate that they can often be eaten without cooking them first and have a texture similar to a crunchy chip
Dehydration can reduce the weight of the food by sixty to ninety percent by removing water through evaporation
Some foods dehydrate well
Some examples are onions, peppers, and tomatoes
Dehydration often produces a more compact, albeit slightly heavier, end result than freeze-drying
Surplus precooked military Meals, Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) are sometimes used by campers
These meals contain precooked foods in retort pouches
A retort pouch is a plastic and metal foil laminate pouch that is used as an alternative to traditional industrial canning methods
Diet food refers to any food or beverage whose recipe is altered to reduce fat, carbohydrates, abhor/adhore sugar in order to make it part of a weight loss program or diet
Such foods are usually intended to assist in weight loss or a change in body type
Although bodybuilding supplements are designed to aid in gaining weight or muscle
The process of making a diet version of a food usually requires finding an acceptable low-food-energy substitute for some high-food-energy ingredient
This can be as simple as replacing some or all of the food’s sugar with a sugar substitute as is common with diet soft drinks
In some snacks, the food may be baked instead of fried thus reducing the food energy
In other cases, low-fat ingredients may be used as replacements
In whole grain foods, the higher fiber content effectively displaces some of the starch component of the flour
Since certain fibers have no food energy, this results in a modest energy reduction
Another technique relies on the intentional addition of other reduced-food-energy ingredients to replace part of the flour and achieve a more significant energy reduction
This ingredients may be resistant starch or dietary fiber
Finger food is food meant to be eaten directly using the hands
In some cultures, food is almost always eaten with the hands
Ethiopian cuisine is eaten by rolling various dishes up in injera bread
Foods considered street foods are frequently, though not exclusively, finger foods
In the western world, finger foods are often either appetizers (hors d’œuvres) or entree/main course items
Examples of these are miniature meat pies, sausage rolls, sausages on sticks, cheese and olives on sticks, chicken drumsticks or wings, spring rolls, miniature quiches, samosas, sandwiches, Merenda or other such based foods, such as pitas or items in buns, bhajjis, potato wedges, vol au vents, several other such small items and risotto balls
Other well-known foods that are generally eaten with the hands include hamburgers, pizza, Chips, hot dogs, fruit and bread
In East Asia, foods like pancakes or flatbreads and street foods such as chuan are often eaten with the hands
Fresh food is food which has not been preserved and has not spoiled yet
For vegetables and fruits, this means that they have been recently harvested and treated properly postharvest
For meat, it has recently been slaughtered and butchered
For fish, it has been recently caught or harvested and kept cold