Trivia Almanac 2015

By Jeff Napier

Trivia Almanac 2015 contains something for everyone from small children to the most serious adults. Use this information in your own reports, articles, presentations, books, homework, letters and conversations, to add sparkle, genius, wit and fun. Use it as food for thought to launch your own great ideas and overcome writer's block. Or, just enjoy what you read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312827387

Book preview

Trivia Almanac 2015

Trivia Almanac 2015

Fun Facts And Strange True Stories

Copyright © 2015, Jeff Napier

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

ISBN 978-1-312-82738-7

How to Use Trivia Almanac 2015

Trivia Almanac 2015 contains something for everyone from small children to the most serious adults. Use this information in your own reports, articles, presentations, books, homework, letters and conversations, to add sparkle, genius, wit and fun. Use it as food for thought to launch your own great ideas and overcome writer's block. Or, just enjoy what you read!

Disclaimer

I hope you enjoy and benefit from reading this information as much I have enjoyed writing it! All the information in this almanac is reliably based on what others have written, but is not in the original form unless specifically quoted. In most cases I have explained things more clearly, worked out more interesting math, combined two or more concepts, or spun non-fiction metaphors on original information. While I have made a great attempt at accuracy with all portions of this almanac, I do not assume any responsibility for your use of this information. You may wish to conduct your own research to make absolutely sure of the facts.

Legal

Although this information is all copyrighted, you may use up to three hundred words in your own projects and products. You can use up to 1,200 words if you mention Fun Fact Almanac 2015 within your works as the source in the following manner, . . . from Trivia Almanac 2015, available in the Amazon Kindle Store.

The Bibliography

Included is a bibliography. Most facts within have reference numbers prefaced with Bibliography . These keys match a source of information within the bibliography. You can look up the original source of the information, to verify facts or to learn more. You'll note that the original information is often much different than what appears in the almanac. For instance, if a source states how far the moon is from Earth in miles, Trivia Almanac 2015 might offer that figure in hours of driving a car at 65 miles per hour, or something even more interesting. (It would take five months and three days, if you could drive 24 hours a day.) Also note that some bibliographical references are used only to double-check the accuracy of facts and do not contain the whole of the information shown.

Thank you very much, & enjoy! - Jeff Napier -

Food History Bites

In the Bible, the fruit that Eve ate in the Garden of Eden was not specifically an apple. In the Koran, the sacred book of Islam, it is called a banana. Some scientists believe the fruit may have been a lemon, because edible apples did not yet exist in the time and place of Eden. Bibliography -22

The word 'salary' came from the word 'salt' in Roman times. Salt was used as a trading medium as money is used today. Bibliography -60

It's hard to imagine that until about four hundred years ago, European people ate everything with their fingers. When a few people started using forks in England, everyone else thought the idea of using tools to eat was totally ridiculous. Bibliography -1

The original reason for tablecloths was as a towel to wipe one's fingers and hands after eating.

In the eighteenth century, John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich invented a small meal that could be eaten with one hand while he continued his nonstop gambling. Bibliography -49

John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola referred to it as, Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage. Bibliography -51 (page 132), Bibliography -50

7-Up was originally called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda when it was invented in 1929. The 7 is for the original size - 7 ounces - and the Up was for bottoms up. The first advertising slogan for 7-Up was, It takes the ouch out of grouch. Bibliography -51 (page 42, 381, 449)

Pepsi spent millions of dollars on an advertising campaign in China with a translation of the slogan, Pepsi gives you life. Only problem was, they got the translation wrong: Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.

When Popsicles first appeared in 1905, they were called Epsicles, after Frank Epperson, their inventor. Bibliography -50

Ketchup was originally made from fish broth and mushrooms. Tomatoes were added later. Today, ketchup has to contain sugar, otherwise it must be called imitation ketchup. Bibliography -50 (i)

A hundred years ago, the average American worked thirteen minutes to earn enough money for a quart of milk. Now, it takes four minutes.

An English king used to like eating rotten oysters. Bibliography -60

When a pineapple was first shown to the infamous glutton King Louis XIV, he immediately grabbed it and took a giant bite. He cut his lips. After that, he outlawed pineapples in France. Bibliography -60

Professor William Buckland acquired the dried out heart of King Louis XIV, provided by grave robbers. He ate it! Bibliography -69

In the early 1900s, Fletcherism was popular. It was an inexpensive diet of milk, potatoes, cereals and maple sugar, among other things. Most unusual about Fletcherism, however, was that you were supposed to chew each bite of food 32 times before swallowing. Furthermore, you were to swish milk and other liquids around in your mouth for at least fifteen seconds before swallowing. The leader of this fad, Horace Fletcher, was quite healthy. When he was 58 years old, he could outperform athletes less than half his age. For instance, he could ride a bicycle two hundred miles in a single day. And not a sleek eighteen-speed bike, but the machine of the day, a single-speed bicycle. Horace Fletcher died of bronchitis at the age of 69.Bibliography -94 (page 222)

Perhaps the most exotic annual culinary affair was hosted by Clodius (also spelled Claudius), a rich Roman actor who had one hundred birds given voice lessons at a cost of approximately $250 per bird. He had these birds made into a pie for his guests. He then offered a drink which contained a dissolved pearl worth about one-half million dollars. Bibliography -22

Historians tell us that a sweet onion was the favorite dessert of the Romans. Bibliography -22

Just before a game, Babe Ruth was taken to a hospital due to extreme stomach pain. He had eaten twelve hot dogs in a row! Bibliography -62

All members of the Roman empire were vegetarians until Julius Caesar. Bibliography -69

In Old England, people drank beer at breakfast. Bibliography -69

In the old days, people did not buy beer in bottles or cans at a store. They went to the tavern and carried the beer home in a bucket. Bibliography -69

Chop suey was invented in America. Bibliography -69

Food In Modern Times

Americans drink three million gallons of orange juice per day. Americans drink over fifteen million gallons of beer daily. This means that on average, Americans drink five times more beer than orange juice. Bibliography -60

One day in Poland, a brewery developed a plumbing problem in which beer was accidentally pumped into the incoming water supply. The result: Residents of the town got free beer on tap at their kitchen sinks, bathrooms and garden faucets. Bibliography -94 (page 167)

Potato chips cost two hundred times more per pound than potatoes. Bibliography -69

The FDA considers chocolate acceptable for public consumption as long as there are less than 60 microscopic insect fragments per 100 grams (four ounces, or approximately one candy bar). Bibliography -49 (page 383), Bibliography -9W

Chocolate is highly toxic to dogs. If they eat as little as four ounces, they can become so hyperactive that they may suffer a fatal heart attack. Bibliography -9R

Rubbing orange peels or lemon peels on yourself makes a good mosquito repellent. Bibliography -94 (page 179)

Velma Anstadt won a science fair when she made protein-rich earthworm cookies. Bibliography -94 (page 228)

Besides Pepsi bottling plants, Pepsico also owns the Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains. Bibliography -4A

Of all the land on earth, 7.6 percent is being farmed. 21 percent could be farmed. Bibliography -4A (page 366)

Michel Lotito has eaten seven TV sets. Bibliography -4A

Julie Andrews sang in Mary Poppins, Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. In fact, for one minor ailment, sugar is the medicine. According to one doctor who set up carefully controlled laboratory tests, swallowing a teaspoonful of dry sugar is the best way to stop hiccups. Note: In the case of many other, serious ailments, sugar is the cause. Bibliography -94 (page 156)

Robert Hopkirk eats 72 raw eggs a week. That's all. Bibliography -60

Safeway, the grocery store chain, owns over 22 miles of bumper to bumper tractor-trailers. Bibliography -97 (page 447)

Even though our bodies each contain more parasites than the total number of people on earth, if you put them all together, they would only fill a drinking glass. Bibliography -97 (page 682) (i)

Two out of every 100 Americans are farmers or ranchers. The other 98 out of a hundred eat their products. Bibliography -97 (page 682)

It appears that the trend of large-scale farming will continue, where fewer and fewer farmers will produce greater and greater volumes of food on larger and larger farms.

Forty percent of Americans want to eat less salt. Lemon or garlic make great salt substitutes. If you like salt on your steak, but know you shouldn't eat so much salt, put a few drops of lemon juice or a sprinkle of garlic powder on the steak and enjoy the taste.

The average American eats 20 to 30 times as much salt as is required for good health.

Four out of five, or more specifically, eighty-two percent of children list pizza as their favorite food.

If all the pizza slices Americans eat in one day came from one giant pizza, it would cover more than 11 football fields. Bibliography -60

The average American family spends $511.52 per year on pizza.

Less than one-third of the meals eaten in America are served to the whole family at once.

Half of all kids under age twelve cook at least one meal per week.

One-third of the items bought at grocery stores are not food.

A collector in Newton, Iowa, Bob Schippers, has 1,228 lunch boxes.

An American spends less compared to what we earn for food than a person anywhere else in the world. Six percent of our total income goes for food. Bibliography - 152

When rats were fed only 60 percent of the food they would eat if they could, they lived 40 percent longer than normal.

If you took all the Lifesavers (the candy) made in one year and put them together, side by side, forming a tube, it would more than circle the earth at the equator. Your tube of Lifesavers would be 35,000 miles long. Driving along at 55 miles per hour for 24 hours a day, it would take you over 26 days to get from the beginning to the end of all those Lifesavers.

Here's a puzzle for you: What do you call the long thin things on the end of a fork? Can't remember? You'll find out in a minute.

A study has discovered that people tend to eat 44 percent more calories when they dine with friends than when they eat alone.

Charles Manson and Hitler were both vegetarians.

A survey was conducted in which shoppers were asked what concerned them most about shopping. Their overwhelming reply: Long waits in line at the check out counter. Retailers, take note.

Wetco sells glacial ice to Japanese consumers. It has a bluish tint and pops and cracks as it melts. The tint is simply the refraction of light in ice denser than homemade ice cubes. The noises are from 10,000-year-old pockets of air being released. This sound is referred to as The whisper of the ages. Price: approximately $3 per pound.

For years milk was been prescribed for ulcers, but recent research finds that milk actually aggravates ulcers.

The things on the end of a fork are called tangs. If you thought they are tines, you are right, also.

There is more alcohol in mouthwash than in wine.

In the past four years, sales from vending machines in America have risen by seven billion dollars to $24.5 billion annually. That's about $79 per person per year. Bibliography - 153

In the early 1970's, when Americans were in the worst nutritional position we have ever been in, 90 percent of women age ten to fifty-four were deficient in iron. In cases severe enough to manifest symptoms, tiredness and listlessness would be common. Since that time, the picture has become somewhat better, due to increased nutritional awareness.

So you eat a bowl of salad every day, and you think this is helping you get all the vitamins you need. In the 1800's this would have been true, but latest evidence shows that the vegetables grown on modern commercial farms have less nutritional value. They are carefully fertilized to the minimum amount necessary to grow and look good. The land has long been depleted of important trace minerals.

The average American eats 16.5 pounds of French fries per year, totaling two million tons. This would fill 50,000 of the biggest tractor trailers.

There is one vending machine for every 55 Americans.

Coming soon: Vending machines that bake and serve a pizza in 55 seconds.

Microwave ovens were originally designed for vending machines.

You can buy a drinking straw with a built-in water purifier.

Some scientists are interested in researching the possibility of natural food packaging. An apple, for instance, is naturally packaged in its own skin. Some ideas for synthetic natural packaging would be rice or pasta wrapped in an edible material that melts in boiled water, cereal boxes replaced with sacks or balls of the cereal itself. You could remove and compost the outer covering, and eat the material within. These concepts would greatly reduce the amount of garbage generated from food packaging. If you need labels, the ink could be made from vegetable dyes which are edible.

There is evidence that plain old hamburgers reduce your susceptibility to skin and stomach cancer. The actual effective ingredient is an oil in ground beef called linoleic acid. However, the rest of the stuff in hamburgers may be bad for your health. When cooking oil is heated to over 400 degrees and reused for a long time, the chemicals in it change. Research indicates that the oil used by many fast-food establishments for frying hamburgers and other foods such as French fries is often carcinogenic.

Food of the future: Therapeutic eggs! Perhaps geneticists and other scientists will raise genetically altered chickens to lay eggs with differing chemical compositions. Other chickens will be given a special diet. In the end, many things that could ail you may be cured by eating these medicinal eggs. Some general purpose eggs, for instance antibiotic eggs, you'll be able to get from your local grocery store. Prescription eggs will most likely have to be purchased from a farmacy.

A person drinks about 11,000 gallons of liquid in a lifetime, approximately one-third the amount of water in a built-in swimming pool.

In Japan, Kobe beef costs $188 per pound. This gourmet meat comes from cattle that have been raised in darkness, fed beer, and given daily massages by special masseurs.

If you are typical, 4 percent of the food you eat will be eaten in front of a refrigerator with its door open. Bibliography -7

Unusual Appetites

Worlds worst meal: eating a bicycle. A man did this by grinding it into powder. Bibliography -4

In 1743 a teen-age boy was observed to have eaten 384 pounds of food in one week. There was another boy (or perhaps another report on this same boy) whose weight increased by 179 pounds in one year from 105 to 284. He ate fifteen hours every day, yet was still hungry. Bibliography -49 (page 377), Bibliography -69

In 1963 a man ate a single meal weighing 54 pounds. Bibliography -49 (page 377)

There was an Olympic hammer thrower who used to eat a dozen raw eggs for breakfast, complete with shells. Bibliography -60

In some parts of Africa, roasted termites are considered a delicacy. Bibliography -9W

Many people in Laos would think you were crazy if you refused to eat giant water bugs. Bibliography -9W

Fruits and Vegetables

Cherries taste great, but if you eat the leaves or twigs of a cherry tree, you could get sick or even die. Bibliography -49

Strawberries are unique among fruits because they carry their seeds on the outside. Bibliography -51 (page 425)

People have grown tomatoes with a strawberry growing inside. Bibliography -22

Americans eat 5,681 miles of carrots per day which equates to a carrot eating rate of 236 miles per hour. Bibliography -60

A genetic engineer in Japan has created cube-shaped watermelons. These stack more efficiently than round ones.

The biggest watermelon recorded was grown in North Carolina. It weighed 197 pounds, more than most adult humans. Bibliography -1

Celery has the unusual effect that the more you eat, the skinnier you will become. It takes more energy to eat celery than the calories it contains. Bibliography -69

If you eat eleven pounds of potatoes, you will gain one pound of weight. Until the eighteenth century, many Americans believed that potatoes were bad for your health. Bibliography -69

Nine-tenths of cabbage is plain water. Bibliography -69

If you store carrots and apples together in your fridge, the carrots will become bitter because they are affected by the natural ethylene fumes given off by the apples. Bibliography -45D

Sugar

There is a wild edible plant called Hernandulcin which is one thousand times sweeter than sugar. Bibliography -9Q

If you filled trucks with all the candy American kids eat in one year, they would line up bumper to bumper from San Diego to San Francisco. Bibliography -1

When the diets of inmates of a Virginia juvenile detention center were changed from typical American junk food to natural foods - cereal without sugar, fruit juice instead of soda, etc., - kids who were chronic offenders decreased by 56 percent and kids who were well-mannered increased by 71 percent. Bibliography -9S

Meat

When you go to a fast-food restaurant and ask for white chicken meat, you might actually get bleached dark meat. Bibliography -9Q

The largest Kentucky Fried Chicken store is in Beijing, China.

Americans eat 127 chickens per second. Bibliography -9S

Most people don't realize that a hot dog may contain cow brains, lips, eyes, stomachs or tails. Americans eat an average of forty of these things per year, at a cost of six hundred million dollars. If you lined them all up, that line would be about a half million miles long. Bibliography -9W, Bibliography -69

If the water used by the cattle business was not paid for by American taxpayers, beef would cost $35 per pound. Bibliography -52

These people were vegetarians for at least part of their lives: Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, Clara Barton, Mahatma Ghandi, Mr. Rogers, Leonardo da Vinci, Jeff Juliano - the original Ronald McDonald, Steve Martin, Buddha, Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton, Seneca, Upton Sinclair, Henry David Thoreau, Voltaire, David Cassidy, Harry Chapin, Cesar Chavez, Bob Dylan, Peter Frampton, Dick Gregory, George Harrison, Gladys Knight, Cloris Leachman, David Wallachinsky, Leslie Ann Warren, Dennis Weaver, David Carradine, Johnny Cash and Adolf Hitler. Bibliography -5, Bibliography -52

There is no known case of a vegetarian dying of a snake bite in America.

Drink

In America, some people put sugar in their tea or coffee. In parts of China, people put salt into their tea. Bibliography -69

Voltaire drank between fifty and sixty-five cups of coffee every day. Bibliography -49 (page 391)

In France the average person drinks over 25 gallons of wine per year. Bibliography -49 (page 394)

In Japan there is a liquor made from the fermented bodies of venomous snakes. Bibliography -69

If everyone quit drinking alcoholic beverages, twenty million starving people could be fed on the grain saved.

Miscellaneous Food Facts

According to the makers of Hellman's Mayonnaise, contrary to popular belief, you can't get sick from their product. They have never had a sick customer. The acid and salt in the product would kill harmful bacteria.

Nine people per day die in America from accidentally drinking, eating or inhaling something other than food. Bibliography -60

If you lined up all the eggs that Americans eat in one day, they would reach from Chicago to Waikiki. (4,142 miles) Bibliography -60

We each eat approximately ten pounds of chemical food additives per year. Bibliography -60

To grow the wheat for a single loaf of bread two tons of water are needed. Bibliography -22

You can harvest one-half ton of wheat from an acre, but if you grow potatoes instead, that same acre will give you five tons. Bibliography -17

A scientist is working on a new soft drink that will help you lose weight in a new way. When you sip this drink, it coats your intestines with a fluorocarbon that reduces the ability to absorb nutrition. When you eat, the stuff will just go right through you without benefit. Bibliography -9W

Americans are 2,300,000,000 (over two billion) pounds overweight. We average about nine and a half pounds overweight. Overweight Americans cost about a million extra gallons of gasoline per year. Bibliography -46

If you occasionally water your plants with Club Soda, they will increase in color and vitality.

Food takes twenty-four hours to complete its 30-foot path through your body.

Honey does not spoil. Ancient Egyptians used to preserve their mummies in honey.Bibliography -69

If you like exotic foods, perhaps you would like Haggis, from Scotland. It contains oatmeal, suet, onions, and sheep heart, lungs, liver and stomach. Bibliography -69

If you spin two eggs on a flat, hard surface, one raw, and the other hard-boiled, the hard-boiled one will spin much longer. Bibliography -69

There used to be a custom of putting a small piece of toast into wine to enhance its flavor by absorbing particles. This is where the term to toast came from. Bibliography -69

The high cost of medical insurance would be reduced by about 33 percent if we all had a proper diet, according to a study by the US Senate Committee of Nutrition and Human Needs.

If we all had a healthy diet, 98 percent of the people who die of heart attacks would live long enough to die of something else.

Some scientists in Tucson, Arizona studied garbage cans and discovered that Americans waste 10 percent of the food we buy. We throw away eighty-one billion dollars worth of good food every year. That's $261 wasted for every man, woman and child in America. Bibliography -74

As everyone knows, the ingredients in packaged foods must be listed on the container. But what most don't know is that sub-ingredients of ingredients do not have to be listed. For instance within natural flavors or hydrolyzed protein often lurks mono sodium glutamate, MSG. Most often associated with Chinese restaurants, this food additive is found in most snack foods. Some scientists are now estimating that as many as five million Americans are suffering from headaches and other symptoms caused by innocently eating MSG.

I don't know what goes on in most grocery stores, but in the produce department of one supermarket I know about, they wax the cucumbers and apples with Johnson's Floor Polish.

Americans eat almost one billion gallons of ice cream per year. That averages over three gallons per person.

Dieting may make you fatter. Your body learns to cherish food. When food is available, such as when you lose your willpower, you'll eat lots more. Many doctors are now recommending that you eat five