Food Facts & Fun

When you see the increasingly popular label on food products, does that mean you're getting a sugar-free product?

By Christine Venzon

Kale is a descendant of ancient cabbage. Learn more about kale in this humorous video from HowStuffWorks.

Cheese has a very long history. Learn more about cheese in this funny video from HowStuffWorks.

"All-natural" labeling offers a thin slice of reassurance to sandwich lovers who want to avoid nitrites and nitrates. But would deli meat be deli meat without them?

By Alison Cooper

Spoiler alert: Light and heat — not your milk's fat content — are what get bacteria excited.

By Alison Cooper

Wheat takes the heat for gut problems, painful joints — even cancer. Has human intervention transformed modern crops into harmful fake food?

By Alison Cooper

Most of us eat breakfast, lunch and dinner every day without stopping to think about it. So why do we eat three meals a day — is there a biological reason, or is it a societal construct?

By Laurie L. Dove

Your food might look perfectly fine on the plate, but silent ingredients — packaging chemicals — probably have seeped into it during storage. How do these substances affect your food?

By Laurie L. Dove

Whether you're about to munch on some sodium-laden cured meats or a salty snack, go ahead and grab a big glass of water. Why does salt make you so thirsty?

By Laurie L. Dove

Kale has become the little black dress of the culinary world: chic, understated and perfect for nearly every occasion. But it comes with a not-so-elegant side effect. We'll — ahem — get to the bottom of why kale makes you so gassy.

By Laurie L. Dove

Meals would be pretty boring without the benefit of herbs and spices. But lest you think those are interchangeable terms, we're here to tell you they're definitely not. What's the difference between herbs and spices?

By Laurie L. Dove

Discerning between a fruit and a vegetable may seem simple: Fruits have seeds and vegetables don't. This works great if you're a botanist, but not so well if you're not. We'll finally tell you which category tomatoes fall into (or maybe we won't).

By Laurie L. Dove

Sometimes it seems as if processed meats (like the pastrami on your late-night sandwich) don't last long. But all those preservatives do serve a purpose — you'll be able to eat that pastrami days after your home-cooked chicken has gone bye-bye.

By Laurie L. Dove

If you can't get enough of starchy foods, you don't need to limit yourself to potatoes and squash. Fruits have starch, too! We'll tell you why, and also reveal the starchiest fruit of them all.

By Laurie L. Dove

Meal kits are becoming increasingly popular. Learn more about meal kits in this video from HowStuffWorks.

A few years ago, hardly anyone could pronounce this product correctly. Now, it's a well-known nutritional superstar, available in almost any supermarket and a common substitute for rice. Why is quinoa so hot?

By Alia Hoyt

People have always had a thing for sparkling water, but it wasn't easy to reproduce the effervescence found naturally in some springs. Why was it so hard to create carbonated water and how did the product gave birth to the soda fountain?

By Dave Roos

With its extended expiration date and super portability, it's no wonder people have been relying on dehydrated food for centuries. But is it any healthier for us?

By Clint Pumphrey

Stuffed full of vitamins and minerals — not to mention fats, carbs and proteins — Soylent can replace all those meals you're tired of making. But would you want it to?

By Jeff Harder

Junk food is a miracle of edible engineering. Food scientists have figured out how to trick our brains into eating all that salt, sugar and fat without thinking about the calories. How do they do it? While you're learning, I'll get some Ding Dongs.

By Dave Roos

Salt and MSG don't just make things taste saltier – they brighten the flavors of almost any food. But how can the same ingredient make chocolate taste sweeter, take the bitterness out of grapefruit and make cream soup taste thicker?

By Dave Roos

If you'd love to eat ice cream all day, maybe you can put that desire to work as a food taster. Or maybe not. The job requires more than a love of eating, and could involve sampling dog food.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

Figuring out how many people a farmer's work feeds is more complicated than you may think. Agriculture has many variables that affect farm output – what are they?

By Maria Trimarchi

Americans tend to think of their Puritan forebears as abstemious killjoys. But the truth is, they drank far more liquor than Americans of today. What other alcohol-related fact bubbles can we burst for you?

By Patrick J. Kiger

We're used to looking at the expiration date for milk but what about beer? While some brands proudly display their beers' "date of birth," others hide it with some cryptic codes. Does the date affect the taste?

By Laurie L. Dove