The World's Greatest Book of Useless Information by Noel Botham Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Diet Coke was only invented in 1983.
    Pepsi originally contained pepsin, hence the name.
    The first western consumer product sold in the former Soviet Union was Pepsi Cola.
    In 1989, Pepsi came out with a morning soft drink called Pepsi AM. It didn’t last long on the market.
    Pepsi is commonly used by wooden boat owners to clean mold from decks. You can spill it on for about thirty seconds, but it needs to be rinsed to be sure it does not erode the decks completely.

HOLD YOUR LIQUOR
    A full 7 percent of the entire Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness beer.
    Beer foam will go down if you lick your finger and then stick it in the beer.
    Researchers in Denmark found that beer tastes best when drunk to the accompaniment of a certain musical tone. The optimal frequency is different for each beer, they reported. The correct harmonious tone for Carlsberg lager, for example, is 510 to 520 cycles per second.
    Widows of a recently deceased king among the Baganda people of Uganda have the honor of drinking the beer in which the king’s entrails have been cleaned.
    The Bloody Mary is known as the “Queen of Drinks” and was invented in Harry’s Bar in Paris in the 1930s.
    If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
    The first man to distill bourbon whiskey was a Baptist preacher in 1789.
    Wine will spoil if exposed to light, hence the tinted bottles.
    Lab tests can detect traces of alcohol in urine six to twelve hours after a person has stopped drinking.
    In medieval England, beer was often served with breakfast.
    Vikings used the skulls of their enemies as drinking vessels.

CRACKING SOME NUTS
    Almonds are a member of the peach family. They are the oldest, most widely cultivated and extensively used nuts in the world.
    Peanuts are cholesterol-?free. They are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
    George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. It takes more than five hundred peanuts to make one twelve-?ounce jar of peanut butter.
    Australian chemist John Macadamia discovered the macadamia nut.
    The only real food U.S. astronauts are allowed in space are pecan nuts.
    In the summer, walnuts get a tan.

EAT YOUR VEGGIES
    Vegetarians make up 4 percent of the U.S. population.
    Ninety percent of the vitamin C in brussels sprouts is lost in cooking.
    You use more calories eating celery than there are in celery itself.
    Eggplant is a member of the thistle family.
    Eating raw onions is good for unblocking a stuffed nose.
    Onions are low in calories and a good source of vitamin C, calcium, potassium, and fiber. They also help circulation.
    Onions get their distinctive smell by soaking up sulfur from the soil.
    The oldest known vegetable is the pea.
    The most popular sweet pepper is the bell pepper.
    The heat of peppers is rated on the Scoville scale.
    The color of a chili is no indication of its spiciness, but size usually is—the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.
    Pumpkins contain vitamin A and potassium.
    Turnips turn green when sunburned.

TUTTI FRUITY
    Pomology is the study of fruit.
    Tomatoes and cucumbers are fruits.
    Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient for waking you up in the morning.
    Fresh apples float because 25 percent of their volume is air.
    The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.
    The most widely eaten fruit in America is the banana.
    The average banana weighs 126 grams.
    Approximately seventeen thousand bananas are eaten each week in the Boston University dining room.
    Bananas do not grow on trees but on rhizomes.
    Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
    Cranberry jelly is the only jelly flavor that comes from the real fruit, not artificial flavoring.
    A cucumber consists of 96 percent water.
    Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.
    Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.
    Seeds are missing from a navel orange. The bigger the