A Pound a Week, That’s All We Ask

Californians have the highest per-capita cheese consumption in the country: 30.5 pounds per year. However, the magazine Deli News points out that Greeks eat 50.4 pounds of cheese a year.

Six Doughnuts a Day, That’s All We Ask

In 1933, the Donut Machine Corp. of America sponsored a Yale study that fed six doughnuts a day to people for six consecutive days and concluded that digestion and health were normal, at least for 1933.

Have a Nice Breakfast

Birds aren’t mammals, of course, but under the influence of prolactin--the enzyme that controls milk in mammals--both male and female birds produce “pigeon’s milk” in their gullets, which they regurgitate for their young to eat. Baby birds may like it, but those who know say it tastes like sour, fermenting seeds.

So We’re Not All Label-Readers

In a recent Gallup poll, 49% of Americans thought Cheerios (whose name comes from “cheery oats”) was made of wheat, and 48% even thought oatmeal itself was made of wheat. The question is, were they the same 49% who didn’t identify white bread as something made from wheat?

Welcome, Little Friends

Lactobacillus CG (catchily named for the last initials of the Tufts University Medical School scientists who developed it) is a yogurt culture said to help stop diarrhea. It thrives in your intestine for several days after you eat the yogurt and prevents the growth of other bacteria.

Drinking High on the Food Chain

Modern beer is flavored with hops, but some beers in Finland still use juniper berries. In the Middle Ages, the Vikings made garlic beer, and in the 14th Century there were weird brews that included meat: Morocco, for instance, was a beer brewed with a hunk of beef in it.

Food Is Art

Retired chef Frank Farello’s 40-inch-long model of the full-rigged sailing vessel USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”), constructed out of a hard frosting made of sugar, starch and gum tragacanth, is now on permanent display at the Navy Historical Museum. Among Farello’s earlier triumphs: a 10-foot-high cake for his daughter’s wedding and a copy of Michelangelo’s Pieta carved from a 750-pound block of margarine.