Snacks and fast food can make up a considerable amount of what we eat in a day. If we're in need of a quick bite between meals, nothing is more satisfying and delicious than some chips, candy, or a similar treat. Fast food is - well, fast and convenient - making it a tasty option when we're in a hurry or just too lazy to cook. Many good eats passed our lips this year - and many facts about those foods crossed our paths, too. We learned about some of our favorite fast-food restaurants, individual ingredients, and even how we might actually be eating food wrong. We can't wait to see what we learn next year! In the meantime, take a look at some of the most fascinating food facts we learned in 2022 and vote up the ones that definitely leave you hungry for more.
1/ Little Caesars Founder Mike Ilitch Paid Rosa Parks's Rent For Years
In 1959, former minor league baseball player Mike Ilitch, with the help of his wife Marian, opened Little Caesar's Pizza Treat in a strip mall in Garden City, MI. From that humble start, the business grew to the point where, as of September 2021, it was the third-largest pizza chain by total sales in the US. In addition to his fast food empire, Ilitch, who passed in 2017, was probably best known for being the owner of two professional sports franchises: the MLB's Detroit Tigers and the NHL's Detroit Red Wings. He bought the Red Wings in 1982 and the Tigers a decade later. Under his ownership, the Red Wings won four Stanley Cups, while the Tigers made it to the World Series twice (although they failed to win a title). But Ilitch was far more than a successful businessman; he was a philanthropist who launched multiple projects, including one to help feed the hungry and another to help honorably discharged veterans transition to careers outside of the military. He also quietly paid the rent of a civil rights icon. Rosa Parks, who sparked the Montgomery, AL, bus boycott in the 1950s, had moved to Detroit. In 1994, the 81-year-old was robbed and assaulted at her apartment. According to a 2014 article in the Sports Business Journal, when Ilitch read that civil rights activist and federal judge Damon Keith was helping Parks find a safer place to live, he reached out to Keith and offered to pay Parks's rent. In the article, Keith said:It’s important that people know what Mr. Mike Ilitch did for Ms. Rosa Parks because it’s symbolic of what he has always done for the people of our city.
2/ Microwave Popcorn Has Been Linked To 'Popcorn Lung'
The official name for "popcorn lung" is bronchiolitis obliterans. The condition results from scar tissue accumulating in the lungs, which, in turn, causes coughing and difficulty breathing. It is irreversible. Inhaling chemicals is often the cause of popcorn lungs, including those in microwave popcorn. Diacetyl, used to flavor microwave popcorn, has been linked to the condition. Diacetyl is also found in wine, candy, and other products that have a buttery taste or aroma. Eric Peoples, who worked at a microwave popcorn factory in Missouri, was awarded $20 million in 2004 after developing popcorn lung. In 2012, Wayne Watson of Colorado was awarded $7.2 million after the court decided his popcorn lung was caused by breathing in the butter-flavored air from bags of microwave popcorn. Watson ate two bags of the snack every day for 10 years.
3/ Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Contains 'Plasticizers'
Phthalates also called "plasticizers," are chemicals used to increase the durability of plastic. They're also found in soap, shampoo, vinyl flooring - and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. In 2017, a study funded by four advocacy groups found "the phthalate concentrations in powder from mac and cheese mixes were more than four times higher than in block cheese and other natural cheeses like shredded cheese, string cheese, and cottage cheese." Out of the 30 products tested, nine were made by Kraft and all had phthalates, chemicals believed to block testosterone production, potentially inhibiting the development of male fetuses as well as contributing to infertility. In 2018, the FDA indicated no studies showed any connection between phthalates and adverse health effects, but also stated, "It's not clear what effect if any, phthalates have on human health." As of 2021, Kraft had not removed phthalates, but that same year, General Mills committed to eliminating phthalates from some of its first boxed macaroni and cheese products.4/ Domino's Left Italy Because Italians Had No Interest In American Pizza
At one time, Domino's expected to open 880 locations throughout Italy. Believing the country would embrace its business model because there were few home delivery options available, Domino's opened its first shop in Milan in 2015. The company sourced all its ingredients from local Italian vendors but added an American flair by including menu items like cheeseburger pizza, Hawaiian pizza, and BBQ chicken pizza. Unfortunately for the American chain, Italians weren't really interested in what Domino's had to offer. Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit and other restaurants began offering delivery options, Domino's pizza locations quickly lost business. By summer 2022, the last of the chain's 29 Italian locations closed for good.
5/ The Results Of 'Super Size Me' Remain Unduplicated
Super Size Me made such a cultural impact that McDonald's changed its menu because of the film, dropping the “Super Size” designation on food items. Director Morgan Spurlock made himself the subject of the 2004 documentary, eating nothing but McDonald's food - three meals a day - for a month. The effects look shocking on-screen. He gains a massive amount of weight, loses energy, becomes depressed, sustains serious liver damage, and sees his cholesterol spike. The upshot is proving that fast food is massively unhealthy. Everybody already knew that, but seeing the impact of it take place over the course of 95 minutes drives the point home. Super Size Me got people talking so much that it earned $11 million at the domestic box office. That's an astronomical sum for a documentary. Are Spurlock's results definitive? Absolutely not. Duplicating them has been difficult, at best. At the University of Linköping in Sweden, a group of students decided to put Super Size Me to the test. Seven healthy med students in their early 20s spent a month gorging on burgers, fries, pizza, and other unhealthy foods, all while avoiding exercise. Their results were much different from the filmmaker's. All predictably gained weight and saw their energy decrease, but none experienced anything close to the depression Spurlock claimed to have. And while their livers did register significant changes, it wasn't anywhere close to a dangerous level. Their cholesterol numbers were virtually unchanged. All of this suggests one of two things - Spurlock had other medical conditions that impacted his results, or his body just had an uncommon reaction. In 2017, he revealed he was an alcoholic and stated, “I haven’t been sober for more than a week in 30 years,” which suggests he was drinking during the production of Super Size Me. This might explain why a doctor who followed him during the McDonald's experiment said his liver looked like an alcoholic's.6/ Taco Bell Took A Swipe At McDonald's By Featuring Real Men Named Ronald McDonald In An Ad
McDonald's has traditionally been the king of the quick-service breakfast market. In 2014, Taco Bell devised an ad campaign for its own breakfast foods that called to mind the rival company's clown mascot, Ronald McDonald. Advertisers recruited 25 men named Ronald McDonald from across the US and put them in a commercial to advertise Taco Bell's new line of breakfast items. Ronald was instructed to say, "I'm Ronald McDonald and I love Taco Bell's new breakfast."
7/ Skittles And Mountain Dew Are Banned In Norway
With their distinctive bright colors, fruity flavors, and colorful commercials, Skittles are a popular American candy. However, tasty as they are, some of their attributes have caused concern outside the US. In particular, Skittles contain a substance called titanium dioxide. Research suggests repeated consumption can lead to damaged DNA, which in turn has been linked to cancer. While these concerns continue to be researched, several countries have blocked the importation of candy, but due to the dyes used, rather than titanium dioxide. Both Sweden and Norway have banned Skittles outright, and it’s possible the European Union may follow suit. Mountain Dew is another staple of Americans’ diets. As with so many other soft drinks, it's marketed to appeal to a younger crowd, encouraging them to embrace an active - and perhaps hyperactive - lifestyle. The soda's most notable attributes include its high caffeine content, its extreme amount of sugar, and, of course, its vibrant greenish-yellow color. The ingredient that provides this distinctive hue, tartrazine (known as Yellow 5), has a mixed reputation. It's linked to headaches and hyperactivity, and both Austria and Norway have moved to ban it entirely.
8/ Powdered Donuts Can Be Covered In The Same Stuff You Find In Paint
Titanium dioxide is added to all kinds of products to make their white appearance brighter. First used for white coloring in 1923, it appears in paintings, ceramics, textiles, and personal care products. You'll find titanium dioxide in ranch dressing, suntan lotions, deodorants, candy, and powdered sugar on donuts. The compound is considered to be safe in the US. Hostess uses it in Donettes, and Tastykake includes it in mini donuts, but Dunkin' took titanium dioxide out of its donuts in 2015. In May 2020, the European Food Safety Authority decided it was no longer safe as a food additive.
9/ Pringles Don't Count As 'Real' Potato Chips
Pringles come in a unique shape - even their packaging stands out among other snacks on store shelves - but that's not the only way they distinguish themselves in the snack aisle. Pringles may resemble potato chips, but technically, they aren't real potato chips. The recipe for Pringles includes "dehydrated processed potato" alongside corn, rice, and wheat - with different flavors and products featuring additional additives. The FDA determined in 1975 that, because Pringles lack real potatoes, they "must be identified as 'potato chips made from dried potatoes in lettering on the label not less than one-half the size of the largest type in which the words ‘potato chips’ appear.'" Pringles don't claim to be potato chips, and the company that used to make them, Procter & Gamble, argued before a court in 2008 that their "unnatural shape" and unique blend of ingredients weren't found in nature. As an attempt to escape the value-added tax on food products sold in the UK, this briefly worked. In 2009, however, an appeals court decided Pringles were subject to VAT. (Kellogg's has owned Pringles since 2012).10/ The Chili At Wendy's Doesn't Clump For A Reason
Wendy's is one of the few fast food chains to offer chili, and it's one of the restaurant's signature foods, alongside baked potatoes and Frosties. The chili at Wendy's includes common ingredients like beans, spices, tomato products, and meat, but it also contains silicon dioxide in its UK restaurants (the US recipe no longer contains it). An anti-caking agent added to keep the chili from clumping, silicon dioxide - also called silica - is a major component in the sand. In terms of being a food additive, it's also present in some coffee creamers, seasonings, baking powder, and confectioners' sugar. Naturally occurring silica, on the other hand, shows up in leafy green vegetables, oats, and bananas.
11/ 'Finger Lickin' Good' Didn't Translate Well For KFC
Like many other fast food restaurants, KFC - formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken - has been the subject of several lawsuits. In 2016, for example, a customer in New York sued KFC because the bucket of chicken she bought was only half full and didn't look like the "overflowing bucket of chicken" she saw in their commercial. Her lawsuit was dismissed, but in 2021, Erwin Sandi of Indonesia successfully negotiated an agreement with KFC after he pointed out how they'd misrepresented their chicken sandwich. Legal disputes aside, going international hasn't always worked out well for Colonel Sanders's brainchild. With locations in nearly 150 countries and territories worldwide, KFC's famous "finger-lickin' good" slogan can get lost in translation. In China, for example, the Mandarin translation equates to "eat your fingers off." As an additional note, when the chain changed its name to KFC, it didn't have anything to do with the content of its foods, despite rumors to the contrary. The new moniker came after the Commonwealth of Kentucky trademarked its name, which meant anyone using the word "Kentucky" would have to pay a licensing fee.12/ True Chicago-Style Pizza May Actually Be Tavern-Style
Say “Chicago-style pizza,” and many people imagine a deep-dish pie. But most Windy City residents will correct the record: Deep-dish is for tourists; real Chicagoans eat tavern-style pizza, comprising a thin-crust pizza cut into squares. The small, even slices make it a very social pie. They're easily held by hand, making them ideal for parties and events. New York-style pizza, on the other hand, has a long history all its own. Springing out of the recipes that immigrants from Naples brought with them across the Atlantic, New York-style pizza has evolved into its own thing. It's cheesier than its Neapolitan ancestor and a bit bigger; the triangular slices - which any true New Yorker will fold in half to eat - are cut from a whole pie with a diameter of roughly 18 inches.
13/ Taco Bell's Seasoned Beef Gets Its Color From A Surprising Source
Taco Bell was sued in 2011 because, according to claims, the fast-food chain's "seasoned beef" was anything but beef. When investigations found that it fell below the legal requirement to be sold as "beef," consumers and the general public learned that what Taco Bell put into its tacos, burritos, and the like was only 35% beef. The restaurant chain insisted the product was 88% beef and, in the end, the lawsuit was withdrawn. Because the USDA only requires "taco fillings" to have 40% meat, Taco Bell's meat product with 35% beef wouldn't qualify, but its self-reported 88% one would. As of 2022, Taco Bell's seasoned beef consists of:Beef, water, seasoning [cellulose, chili pepper, maltodextrin, salt, oats, soy lecithin, spices, tomato powder, sugar, onion powder, citric acid, natural flavors (including smoke flavor), torula yeast, cocoa, disodium inosinate & guanylate, dextrose, lactic acid, modified corn starch], salt, sodium phosphates.Among those ingredients, cocoa is present to give the seasoned beef its color, but it "doesn't add any flavor to our recipe."
14/ Salsa Dates Back To Mesoamerica, But It Wasn't Supposed To Go On Chips
Salsa, a word that simply means "sauce" in Spanish, has been linked to the Aztecs, Incans, and Mayans - all civilizations that cultivated tomatoes and tomatillos. When the Spanish arrived in modern-day Mexico during the 16th century, they found sauces of various kinds. Missionary Bernardino de Sahagún described them when documenting an Aztec marketplace in his Florentine Codex:Sauces, hot sauces, fried [food], olla-cooked, juices, sauces of juices, shredded [food] with chile, with squash seeds, with tomatoes, with smoked chile, with hot chile, with yellow chile, with mild red chile sauce, yellow chile sauce, sauce of smoked chile, heated sauce, he sells toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom sauce, sauce of small squash, sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce.As the predecessors of what is now generally called salsa, these sauces all had different functions within Mesoamerican cuisine. Salsa has, of course, extended its influence far beyond Mexico and Central America. In the US in 1992, sales of salsa surpassed those of ketchup, a clear signal of its popularity. The desire to put salsa on everything, as described by restaurant owner Irma Verdejo, is difficult to swallow. Mexican student Javier Olmedo put it this way:
Watching someone shovel in salsa with tortilla chips is strange to Mexicans. Like how an American would feel watching someone drink salad dressing out of the bottle.The union of salsa and tortilla chips likely occurred as the former grew in popularity, but it's not entirely clear when. Two entities are associated with the creation of tortilla chips: Rebecca Webb Carranza and the Tamalina Milling Company. Either way, tortilla chips weren't available in abundance until the early- to the mid-20th century.
15/ Arby's Wasn't Actually Named To Sound Like What It Serves
If you say it out loud, it seems obvious: Arby's sounds just like "R" and “B” - which must stand for “roast beef,” right? Considering the fast-food chain is known for its roast beef sandwiches, this makes a lot of sense. That's not where the name comes from, but it's a fun addition to the story. The "R" and "B" that lend themselves to the name actually come from Arby's founders, the Raffel brothers. Arby's began serving food in 1964 in Boardman, OH. Leroy and Forrest Raffel sold their sandwich for 69 cents - far more than a McDonald's burger that cost 15 cents - and knew that their customer base was going to be "a little more affluent" as a result. According to Leroy, their first offerings included roast beef served on "an egg bun with dimples on the top and sesame seeds and we buttered it and toasted it." The brothers began to franchise, and in 1976 sold the chain to the Royal Crown Cola Company. On a similar note, have you ever wondered why it's called Taco Bell? Although the restaurant features a bell of the tolling kind on its logo, the chain is named after founder Glen Bell. In 1946, the California native and WWII veteran got into the food business when he started a hot dog stand in San Bernardino, CA. He transitioned to selling tacos in 1952. Ten years later, he opened Taco Bell in nearby Downey.
16/ Candy Glaze Is Made From Bug Secretions
Confectioner's glaze, also known as shellac, is what keeps candy and other sweets shiny, essentially serving as a varnish to the goodie. You may not give shellac much thought, but it's actually derived from the secretions of the lac insect (Kerria lacca) - hence the name. Female lac insects take in sap from specific types of trees - often in either the Fabaceae (legume) family or the Rosales (rose) order. They absorb it as food, lay eggs, and then excrete the sap. When air combines with the excretions, it becomes hard, and in theory, protects the eggs. It's at that point workers scrape the coating off the trees, refine it, and process it for a variety of products. Candy corn, for example, is covered in shellac (adding to its vilification each October), as are jelly beans, and chocolates like Milk Duds and Raisinets. Skittles removed shellac from its product in 2009, but some Skittles still contain Red 40 - a dye derived from carmine, which comes from cochineal insects, also called scale insects. (Lac insects are also a type of scale). Sometimes called "beetle juice," carmine doesn't contain any actual bugs but rather is extracted from female cochineal insects when they're crushed. Another candy-related ingredient with potentially unsatisfying origins is gelatin. Gelatin is in Jell-O, gummy candies, marshmallows, and any other comparably squishy, malleable foods. Gelatin is usually derived from animal products - specifically the collagen found in the flesh and bones of pigs. When pigs and the like are slaughtered for meat, the remnants of their bodies are boiled and broken down into a gelatinous substance. As one of the key ingredients in foods like Rice Krispies Treats, s'mores, and Peeps, marshmallows bring all of that with them.
17/ French Fries And Condoms Have A Lot In Common
Polydimethylsiloxane is a common ingredient in condom lubricants. Often referred to as E900 or (PDMS), it's a simple silicon-based polymer and is in other consumer goods, too, including Silly Putty, skin and hair care products, and hydraulic fluid. PDMS functions as an anti-foaming agent, which is how it becomes part of the French fry-making process. The chemical is added to fryers to prevent potentially dangerous splatter. According to a 2017 report from the European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals:Extensive environmental, animal, and epidemiology studies have been conducted on PDMS. In all cases, PDMS has been shown to pose little or no risk to the environment or human health.In 2018, a Japanese study claimed PDMS successfully aided in hair growth in mice. Despite these findings, there's no connection between eating fries and curing baldness.
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