Junk Food Myths

Because Twinkies do not contain any dairy products, they last much longer than most baked goods. However, contrary to popular belief, they do not remain fresh for several decades or even years. Their shelf life is 25 days

In 2003, a man from Hawaii discovered an oversized Cheeto in a store-bought bag, and auctioned it on eBay just for fun. A local radio station in Iowa collected donations to bid on it, in hopes that the Cheeto would draw tourists to the area. However, prank bidding for the giant Cheeto topped $1 million and eBay shut down the auction.

The Cheeto's owner decided to donate it to the Iowa town, and in turn asked them to donate the money they had raised to a local food bank. Frito-Lay, the company that manufactures Cheetos, also donated items to be auctioned off at the giant Cheeto's unveiling. The oversized Cheeto, which is about the size of a small lemon, is on display in a glass case in Sister Sarah's Restaurant in Algona, Iowa.

In two separate studies, engineering students at Purdue University and the University of Michigan designed a licking machine (yes, we wish we had a photo, too) to find the answer to the age-old question, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" The Purdue machine averaged 364 licks, while Michigan's took an average of 411 licks. Other studies conducted with human volunteers resulted in averages of 252 and 144 licks.

Perhaps the world really will never know just how many licks it takes …

Actually, chewing gum is largely indigestible, but it will make its way through your digestive system at the same rate as anything else you consume.

In fact, that's how it got its name -- from a blend of coca leaf and kola nut extracts used in the original 1885 formula. At the time, cocaine was a common ingredient in medicines, and Coca-Cola was developed as a medicinal elixir. When cocaine was later discovered to be harmful and addictive, the company phased it out, leaving only trace amounts to justify the name. By 1929, the beverage was completely cocaine-free.

This phenomenon is known as triboluminescence, which is essentially light created by friction. The triboluminescence of sugar is like lightning on a very small scale. When you crush the candy with your teeth, the friction creates small flashes of light.

While you can make faint sparks with other types of hard sugar candy, in the case of Wint-O-Green LifeSavers, the effect is enhanced by the fluorescent quality of the wintergreen flavoring, resulting in brighter sparks with a bluish tint.

When a diner at a resort in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., complained to head chef George Crum that his french fries were too thick, bland and soggy, the chef stormed into the kitchen to concoct the crispest, saltiest fries the world had ever seen. He took paper-thin potato slices, fried them to a crisp, coated them with salt, and dumped them in front of the persnickety patron ... who loved them, as did many of his fellow diners.

Crum's 1853 invention came to be known as Saratoga Chips, but remained a local specialty until the invention of the mechanical potato peeler in 1920. Several entrepreneurs across the United States began mass-producing and selling potato chips as a snack food, including traveling salesman Herman Lay, whose Lay's potato chips became the first successful national brand.

As much as we all enjoyed watching those TV commercials in the '70s and '80s ("You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!"), the candy's origins were not that dramatic. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were invented in the 1920s by Harry Burnett Reese, a former dairy employee of Milton S. Hershey, founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company. Inspired by Hershey's accomplishments, Reese decided to go into the chocolate business himself, and peanut butter cups were one of his early successes.

According to Hershey's Web site, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are the No. 1-selling candy brand in the United States.

Jelly Belly manufactures "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans," a favorite of Harry Potter and friends in the popular books by J.K. Rowling. While the assortment also contains more conventional flavors such as cherry, blueberry and green apple, you'd best choose carefully lest you end up with flavors such as black pepper, sardine, booger and vomit.

Despite warnings that have been circulating on the Internet for years, cups of instant noodles do not have a wax coating, so adding boiling water and consuming them will not result in waxy buildup in your stomach. Even if you did regularly consume small quantities of melted wax, it would pass through your digestive system, just like everything else.

Several scientific studies have concluded there is no link between eating chocolate and acne breakouts, contrary to popular belief.

This rumor stems from the uniform appearance and unusual texture of Pringles. According to legend, McDonald's restaurants collect all their stale fries, dehydrate them and turn them into potato flakes, which are sold to Procter & Gamble Co to manufacture Pringles. While Pringles are made from potato flakes, they do not in fact acquire them from McDonald's -- they just come from potatoes, which would most likely be a lot less expensive (and oily) than recycled french fries.