Just 27 (Legit Interesting) Food Facts That I Think About Constantly

The part of the quinoa plant that we eat is the seed. But to get the seed, the plant first needs to flower.

The raw leaves contain oxalic acid, among other things. And if you eat a ton of them, it can be lethal.

They contain urushiol, which is toxic. To remove it, cashews go through an extensive roasting or steaming process before they're packaged and sold.

Justice for mahogany! Dating back to the 1800s, it's America's first chocolate cake on record. Early versions used ermine frosting, a whipped buttercream that was the icing of choice in the US before cream cheese frosting came along.

It's a looong process. The next time you grab one at the grocery store, think about how far the thing has come!

Real vanilla is incredibly labor-intensive to produce. When the flowers finally do bloom, they stay open for only one day and have to be pollinated within 12 hours.

All varieties: green, white, purple.

The brand reworked the chocolate mixture, among other things. (But worth noting? Some people really hated the new version.)

And earlier this summer, Ritter won a German lawsuit allowing it to be the only major chocolate brand to sell a square bar rather than a rectangular one.

They're almost genetically identical except for one thing: a gene that's either dominant (peaches) or recessive (nectarines). That's what makes the skin either smooth or fuzzy.

Brassica oleracea was selectively bred over hundreds of years to create dozens of very different veggies.

Sour Patch Kids are just pumped into a different mold and finished with a sour coating.

Although it smells like nutmeg and cinnamon, Allspice is actually a fruit that's picked, dried, and sold either as whole "berries" or ground up into its own spice.

Jam is made with fruit, sugar, and often pectin (a thickener). Jelly is made with fruit juice, sugar, and pectin. Another way to remember the difference? Jam is chunky (it'll have mashed fruit); jelly is smooth.

Minnesotan William A. Mitchell = a busy dude!

The new design uncages the animals and puts them in the wild.

That's because the grease from the chocolate and oil in real cookies could damage the puppets.

It contains myristicin, a compound that has hallucinatory qualities — and bad side effects — if ingested in very large doses. (Don't try it, obvs.)