1. Strawberry seeds are actually nuts!
We usually call the tiny specks on the outside of a strawberry seeds, but did you know they’re actually nuts? Botanists call them achenes, a kind of tiny nut. So the strawberry isn’t really a berry at all. It’s what’s known as a false fruit, or accessory fruit. The red, juicy flesh we eat is just the plant’s swollen flower base. The true fruits are the many small yellow and green specks (the nuts) scattered across the surface.
2. Honey can stay edible for thousands of years
Honey is the only food that never goes bad, as long as it’s kept in a sealed container. Archaeologists have found jars of honey in Egyptian tombs thousands of years old, and it’s still perfectly edible! The secret is honey’s extremely low water content and very high acidity. Together, they make it an impossible place for bacteria and microorganisms to survive.
3. Tonic water glows in the dark under UV light
If you take a glass of tonic water onto a dance floor or hold it under a UV light (black light), it will give off a bright, pale blue glow. That’s because of quinine, the compound that gives tonic its bitter taste. Quinine was originally used as a medicine against malaria. It absorbs invisible ultraviolet light and sends it back out as visible blue light.
4. Ketchup was originally sold in pharmacies as medicine
In the 1830s, ketchup was marketed as a cure for everything from diarrhea to loss of appetite and jaundice. An American physician, Dr. John Cook Bennett, believed tomatoes had unique medicinal properties. He had tomato extract made into pills and sold them as medicine. It took several decades for people to realize that tomato sauce was far better as ketchup on your plate than as medicine in the cabinet.
5. Nutmeg can make you hallucinate
The spice we use in white sauce, mashed potatoes and holiday baking contains an organic compound called myristicin. In the amounts you’d normally use in cooking, it’s completely harmless. But if you ever decided to eat several tablespoons of pure nutmeg, it would act as a poison that can cause powerful hallucinations, dizziness and a “nutmeg hangover” lasting several days.