Fun Facts

Fun Fact! Chickpeas, or garbanzo beans, are most commonly tan or beige, but also come in yellow, red, dark green, and brown.

Fun Fact: Lettuce was considered a weed before ancient Egyptians turned it into a food plant.

Fun Fact: In the late 1700s, many Europeans feared tomatoes, believing that they were poisonous (which obviously is not true). The fact is that many European aristocrats died from eating tomatoes off of pewter plates. These plates were high in lead content and responsible for deaths from lead poisoning.

Fun Fact: The darker a carrot’s color is, the more beta-carotene it contains.

Fun Fact: Peppers come in two general varieties: sweet (mild) and chili (hot). The most common sweet pepper is the bell pepper.

Fun Fact: Strawberries and raspberries are technically not berries. Unlike true berries that stem from one flower with one ovary, strawberries and raspberries come from a single flower with more than one ovary.

People once believed that the thickness of an onion’s skin could predict the severity of the winter to come. A thick skin predicted a rough winter, while thin skin meant milder weather.

There are more than 100 types of cabbage grown worldwide. In the United States, the most common types of cabbage are green, red, and Savoy cabbage, while the most common types of Chinese cabbage are Bok Choy and Napa cabbage.

There are more than 50 varieties of grapes.

Cantaloupes are also called “muskmelons” in the United States.

Americans’ combined consumption of orange juice and fresh oranges makes oranges the most consumed fruit in the United States.

Tomatoes and avocados, both of which contain seeds, are technically fruits, not vegetables.

Ancient Greeks and Romans used asparagus as medicine for healing toothaches and preventing bee stings.

Sweet potatoes are not related to potatoes but in fact belong to the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae). By contrast, potatoes are members of the Solanaceae family alongside tomatoes, red peppers, and eggplant. Sweet potatoes are tuberous roots, while potatoes are actually swollen stems.

Libyans have the highest per capita consumption of onions.

A bell pepper’s flavor becomes sweeter and milder the longer the pepper ripens.

The average American consumes approximately 27 pounds of melons each year, according to the Ag Marketing Resource Center, with the U.S. one of the world’s leading melon consumers.

Strawberries, along with other popular berries like blackberries, boysenberries, and raspberries, are members of the rose (Rosaceae) family.

Ancient Egyptians used honey for embalming the dead.

The majority of cabbage used in the United States is used for processing coleslaw.

While peaches and nectarines are very similar and of the same species, a gene variant between the two means that peaches are covered in fuzz, while nectarines are not.

The average orange consists of 10 segments.

White asparagus and green asparagus come from the same plant species. The only difference is in how they are grown. White asparagus is grown underground and deprived of light, while green asparagus is grown above the ground. Both can be used interchangeably in cooking.

It’s said that Christopher Columbus introduced melons to the New World, transporting their seeds across the ocean.

Broccoli has been grown in the United States since 1925.

What U.S. consumers typically think of as orange “yams” are actually sweet potatoes. A true yam is generally imported from the Caribbean and contain a pinkish white center.

Watermelons get their name from their high water content (approximately 92%).

Artichokes were considered a delicacy and aphrodisiac by ancient Romans. The wealthiest Romans would eat artichokes with honey, vinegar, and cumin.