Watermelon is a quite popular fruit.
Let’s find out more about watermelon!
- Watermelon is a plant species.
- It belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae.
- It comes from West Africa.
- Watermelons have been cultivated in Egypt for more than 5,000 years.
- Egyptians depicted watermelon in drawings on the walls of tombs
- They even left watermelon with their dead.
- This happened in order to nourish them as they journeyed through the underworld.
- It is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide though.
- It has more than 1000 varieties.
- Some varieties need up to 130 warm days to ripen.
- Most watermelons mature in 85 to 100 days.
- The largest watermelon ever grown was grown in Arkansas by Lloyd Bright.
- It weighed 268.8 pounds.
- It happened in 2005.
- Watermelons are 92% water.
- Some watermelons have white, yellow, orange or even green flesh.
- Watermelon sweetness can be measured by a Brix scale.
- Most watermelons are around 9 to 10 on the Brix scale.
- The seeds of watermelon are actually quite nutritious.
- We think of watermelon as a fruit because of its sweet flavor.
- Watermelon is actually a vegetable.
- In Egypt and Africa, people often pair watermelon with salty feta cheese.
- People in Greece also prefer eating it with feta cheese.
- Watermelon has only 40 calories per cup.
- Yet it has more lycopene than any other fruit or vegetable.
- Watermelon is the official vegetable of Oklahoma.
- Seedless watermelons are the result of hybridization.
- Watermelon can help prevent cancer.
- In Japan, farmers have been growing cube-shaped watermelons.
- Japanese do that for the past 40 years.
