Friday Facts

[blueshift]

It's Friday. But without using google, can you work out which of the below food-based facts are true, and which are false?

No cheating, people!

• Cadburys shrink the size of their Cream Eggs by 2% every Easter in order to offset rising production costs.
  
  
• Pizza did not originate in Italy. It actually came from Africa though was originally a 3 metre-wide disc, used to feed an entire village at once.
  
  
• The tomato is not actually a vegetable. It is in fact a variety of the apple family.
  
  
• The largest recorded spaghetti harvest was in Naples, 1974 where a crop weighing 4 tons was harvested from just 5 acres
  
  
• The Kit Kat originated on the streets of Victorian London, and was marketed as a chocolate bar. However due to the expense of chocolate at the time, it was mixed with sawdust and cat, thus originating the name. Nowadays this filing has been replaced with wafer.
  
  
• Marmite was used in World War II as industrial grease on battleships
  
  
• Before the potato was invented by Sir Walter Raleigh, fish’n’chips was eaten with deep-fried ‘chips’ made from turnips.
  
  
• Like the yoyo, the barbeque was originally used by aborigines in Australia as a hunting weapon.
  
  
• The recipe for Wotsits was changed in 1983 when Walkers refused to identify the mysterious ingredient used to colour the corn-based snack to the government watchdog. It was since replaced with identifiable food colouring.
  

[bertie]

The KitKat would be dead funny if it was true.

The Marmite one IS true.

[Hero]

I heard about the Marmite one too, which explains a lot

The Tomato one is true.

===KEN

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I say the tomato is not an apple. It is a fruit. But all fruit are vegetables in my book, so it is also a vegetable. However, vegetable is not a scientific term. Some people use vegetables to refer to all edible plant matter, others don't count fruits as vegetables.

You say don't use Google. What makes you think Google will throw up a correct answer?

Martin

[Deleted]

I heard once that fruits and vegetables are defined by their seeds. If the product contains seeds or pips then it is a fruit - if it doesn't then it is a vegetable. No doubt somebody will prove this fact wrong however.

[karla]

I'm gonna say the aborigines use barbeques as hunting weapons is true

[Hero]

The Tomato is a fruit, but eaten like a vegetable much like the Rhubarb is a vegatable, but eaten like a fruit.

Not sure what possibly makes the Tomato part of the Apple family though apart from simular physical features.

===KEN

[Cullen]

The creme egg one is false if you are refering to their weight - they've been 40g forever but Cadbury have been shrinking the dimensions of the egg (and therefore reducing the amount air of inside)

[Deleted]

The Spaghetti harvest one is definitely false. That was the subject of a Panorama spoof story a while back.

[Hero]

I'd be interested to find out if the Turnip-chips is true.

===KEN

[grahamthomson]

When are you going to tell us which ones are true and which aren't?

[Shockprowl]

I'm still stuck on the concept of a 3m pizza! *droooools*