Why are bees transported across countries by truck? Bees are the largest pollinator of many of the foods we eat and they have to be transported to where the foods are grown. Bees are the most common pollinator but not by any means the only. Bees travel from their hive to find flowers. When they […]
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What are food additives? They are things that are added to food to preserve the flavor, or improve the taste, appearance, or other qualities. There are a huge number of food additives and some of them are completely natural. Salt and sugar are both food additives. Humans have been using food additives ever since we
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How does cacao become chocolate? Through fermentation, drying, roasting, grinding, and adding milk and sugar. Cacao beans grow on a cacao tree, which is native to the Amazon basin in South America. The tree is called “Theobroma cacao.” “Theobroma” means “food of the gods” in Greek and “cacao” is the Spanish form of “kakaw” and
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Why does bread need yeast? Bread doesn’t have to have yeast and there are many breads made without it. However, if you want the bread to rise, then it needs yeast. Yeast is a single-celled organism called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is a fungus, which means they make their energy by decomposing other things. There are
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When did people start eating chickens? People have eaten chickens for thousands of years, but it only became cheap after World War 2. Chickens were domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago in southeast Asia. The wild chicken that people domesticated was the Southeast Asian Red Junglefowl. They were probably domesticated because of the eggs
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Why does beer have alcohol? Because the yeast cells in the beer feed on sugar and produce ethanol. Yeast is an egg-shaped single-celled fungus. There are 1,500 different species of yeast. 1% of all fungal species are yeast. Humans use yeast for several things, but the most common are bread and alcoholic drinks. When yeast
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What is high fructose corn syrup? It is a sweetener made from cornstarch. There is a lot of debate over whether high fructose corn syrup is bad for you or not. The American Food and Drug Administration says there is no evidence to show that high fructose corn syrup is any worse for you than
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How is decaffeinated coffee made? There are several different methods, but they all involve washing the caffeine out of the coffee beans. Coffee grows on a bush, which is usually about 1.5 m high. The coffee bean is the seed of the bush and it grows inside a red cherry. The cherries are picked when
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How are foods frozen? They are dipped in something cold, pressed between cold plates, or exposed to cold air. Once vegetables or fruits are picked, or once meat is butchered, they have to be frozen as quickly as possible. The second these foods are exposed to the air, they start to break down. The faster
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Can you eat the skin of all fruit and vegetables? Some fruits have a poisonous skin that it is better to avoid. The skin of some vegetables is too difficult to chew. What is a fruit? A fruit is a mature, ripened ovary, and the contents of the ovary. The ovary is the female part
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