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10 strange stories about food





The fact that most restaurants do not allow you to see how your food is prepared, there is a reason, and it sounds like this: "The less you know - better sleep." We eat a lot of strange things, from the fact that other cultures do not take up everyday snacks with the addition of which run goosebumps. In the list you'll learn about the ten strangest stories about the food we eat, from our favorite desserts to rotten flesh of elephants and our neighbors.

10. Abduction of Canadian maple syrup


Maple syrup - one of the most expensive things you can pour your pancakes. One bottle of syrup usually sells for more than $ 20. Part of the high cost of syrup caused inefficiency of his generation. To produce one liter of syrup must spend 18 to 50 liters of maple syrup. In order to ensure that the international demand for syrup, the Canadian province of Quebec to support the Global Strategic Reserve Maple Syrup. In 2012, during the audit, it was found that 2,720 tons of syrup (wholesale price is about $ 18 million) was stolen during the robbery surprising. This was not some predatory raid - in order to carry as many barrels would have to use dozens of trucks. In the ensuing months have been several arrests and about two thirds missing syrup back.

9. The most common food voruemaya


If you ask someone about what kind of food is most often stolen, most will answer - sweets, alcohol or even meat. However, according to many studies, up to 4% of cheese, put up for sale, is stolen. When you're in the supermarket next time, pay attention to how the store put up cheese, especially expensive imported species. Usually, it is centered and well illuminated, the thieves did not attempt this cheese. The phenomenon is not completely understood, although the researchers point out that the cheese is relatively expensive, easy to hide and can be resold to other stores or restaurants. The black market cheese - big business.

8. Eggs


American and Canadian tourists traveling far from their countries are often surprised when they see that the eggs are stored at room temperature. They would be even more shocked to learn that in the countries of the European Union eggs in store come directly from the chicken - they do not wash and disinfect any way. Chickens actually secrete a liquid shell around the egg, which protects it from contamination. This layer is almost completely removed during cleaning, during which the eggs are washed with water at 90 degrees and unscented detergent. The very process of washing really makes the egg more open to infection, so it has to be stored in the refrigerator. The cost of this inefficient process is staggering, but American buyers prefer to buy such eggs.

7. Ice cream


In the U.S. market features dozens of different kinds of ice cream, but a distinctive flavor puts the company above its competitors. The largest ice cream manufacturer in the U.S. - the company Drayers (which includes Edis and Haagen-Dazs) and this is due, for the most part of their official taster, John Harrison (John Harrison). Harrison travels around the country visiting various factories Drayers to share with them their experiences. He uses a gold spoon which does not alter the taste of ice cream. His taste buds are insured for $ 1 million. He participated in the creation of several popular flavors of ice cream, including ice cream, based on Oreo cookies.
Other ice cream makers use a variety of approaches. The company Ben & Jerry's of Vermont uses fresh, local ingredients and ice cream is a favorite of many Americans. Their ice cream is large chunks of chocolate cake and fruit being added anosmia due to the company's founder Ben Cohen (it has no smell, and it is not very sensitive to taste). Because Cowan almost does not feel the taste of what he eats, he adds a little more ice cream ingredients that he had a peculiar texture.

6. Mushrooms


People rarely have ambivalent feelings towards the mushrooms - they either love or hate. No matter what the taste of the people believe, mushrooms are very interesting organisms. Some fungi, such as "North American deadly angel", can be deadly, while others, psilocybin "magic" mushrooms, cause profound psychedelic experiences. In the world there are 71 species of mushrooms that glow in the dark, and there is even a kind of Letiporus that tastes like chicken. More recently, scientists have discovered that the electricity flowing through the mushrooms, can increase their production in half - a fact known to the Japanese farmers over many generations. When lightning strikes in the shiitake mushrooms, on the basis of available electricity, so farmers get higher yields. Scientists are not sure what causes this phenomenon, but it's probably some sort of defense mechanism - increasing the ability to multiply in the event of danger.

5. Gatorade (Gatorade)


Gatorade was invented in 1965 by professor and a nephrologist (kidney specialist) from the University of Florida, Robert Cade (Robert Cade) and his staff in order to maintain an adequate water level of the players. Although at the moment there are many different flavors of the drink in the earlier version of this was, in fact, water, sugar, salt and a little lemon juice to taste. When Cade presented his drink Gators team, linebacker Larry Gagner (Larry Gagner) tried it and said, "this drink tastes like piss," and poured the rest of glass on his head. Employees Cade were intrigued by comparison. It tells the professor: "None of us have tasted the urine. We collected urine into a glass and tried to finger her taste. You know what? Differ in taste very much ».

4. Sushi


Before the explosion in popularity of sushi, many species of fish, such as, for example tuna plain, numbered such a huge population that they were used as cat food. At the same time the tuna is one of the most precious beings in the world, and its individual members are estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. With increasing prices and decreasing the population of fish in the ocean, many sushi restaurants are in most people's inability to distinguish between the types of fish, often replacing them with cheaper types. In the United States, many places that sell tuna, actually sell escolar, also known as the gray delicacy mackerel or fish oil. In Escolar contains so much oil that many people it causes a laxative effect. Many countries consider the fish escolar toxic, its sale has been banned in Japan since 1977, but many visitors are American restaurants still use them every day without knowing it. And then pay for it in the toilet.

3. Ancient snack


Woolly mammoths lived with early humans, but most of them became extinct about 10,000 years ago. The latter, isolated populations have died out around the time that the Great Pyramid was built. We know so much about these magnificent creatures because they live in areas such as the Siberian tundra, where they were frozen after death and preserved in good condition. They were in good condition so that modern people have tried thawed meat mammoths. There are many stories about eating these ancient ancestors of elephants, and even though many of them are questionable, other stories have been confirmed. Not surprisingly, the description have tried the meat was the taste of the "terrible" to "rotten." Professor of Zoology Dale Guthrie gave a good description of the taste of meat - he and his team have prepared a little mammoth meat obtained from the corpse, age 36,000 years old, found in Fairbanks, Alaska. He wrote: "The meat was good exposure, but still tough enough, and it gave the stew a strong Pleistocene taste." Whatever that meant.

2. Cannibalism


Despite the fact that most modern people regard cannibalism as "the greatest taboo", he practiced in all parts of the world, and even now is far more common than we like to believe. Many of the civil conflict in central Africa, especially in Congo, gave rise to bursts of cannibalism and primitive tribes, such as Korowai of New Guinea sometimes allow themselves to take in food human flesh. Given this, there is a natural, albeit eerie question: "What is the taste of human flesh?»

Reviews about the taste of human flesh vary, but Wilma Bueler Seabrook (William Buehler Seabrook), the reporter received a piece of flesh from a hospital worker in the the Sorbonne, Paris, provides plenty of short and succinct description. Seabrook cooked human flesh, and then wrote: "The flesh was as good veal, not too young, but not beef. Human flesh tasted exactly like that, and not like any other meat I have ever tasted. She was so close in taste to good veal that a person with normal taste, not too versed in the meat could not distinguish it from veal ».

1. The perfect food


Find a person who does not like the taste of ketchup is difficult, and for good reason. Unlike almost any other food on the planet, ketchup, and in particular Heinz ketchup, satisfies almost all taste buds. Heinz mixed salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (the same flavor that comes from adding sodium glutamate) tastes, and so gracefully that no part of the recipe does not overwhelm the taste buds. Other varieties of ketchup is not as well balanced and generally have a distinct flavor, which can concentrate - for example, the taste of vinegar or sweet tomato. It is for this reason, Heinz, got on the shelves of more than a hundred years ago, is still so popular, selling annually about 650 million bottles. Unlike other foods, you will rarely find a "new and improved" ketchup. He's already perfect.



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