Misconceptions About Food - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep. 2)

Hi, I'm Elliot. This is Mental Floss on YouTube, and today I'm going to talk to you about some

misconceptions about what you're eating. Misconception number one, MSG causes headaches

I know, MSG, this is like so early 2000s of me. Anyway, MSG is a less fancy way of saying

monosodium glutamate, which is found in soy sauce, fast food, frozen dinners, and elsewhere

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has tested MSG three times, in 1958, 1991, and 1998

Each time, they found MSG to be safe for consumption as long as it was in normal amounts

The Mayo Clinic confirms the researchers haven't found a link between MSG and symptoms like headaches, sweating, and nausea

I personally have found a link between MSG and sweet and salty deliciousness

Misconception number two, chimichangas are from Mexico. Though it's not clear exactly who invented the chimichanga, it was invented in Arizona

One story goes that they were invented on accident by a woman in Tucson who dropped a burrito into a deep fryer

Another story says that they were invented in Phoenix by a restaurant owner who thought frying burritos might preserve them for longer

It's gross. Either way, chimichangas are American. Misconception number three, Twinkies never expire

I assuming you have the common sense to know this but it so funny We just gonna talk about it anyway Some believe that Hostess stopped producing Twinkies a long time ago because the snack has a shelf life of decades

In fact, the shelf life is 45 days in the store. In my home, the shelf life is years

because even I have my limits on what I will eat. Misconception number four, a tomato is a fruit

Alternatively, a tomato is a vegetable. You can stop arguing about this

because it's actually kind of both. It really depends on who you ask. A botanist will tell you that tomatoes fall

into the category of fruit, but most still consider it a vegetable. In the late 19th century, this issue actually came before the U.S. Supreme Court

because an importer wanted tomatoes to be considered fruits rather than vegetables

At the time, fruits weren't taxed but vegetables. The Supreme Court decided that, yes, tomatoes were fruits, sort of

but they would still be considered vegetables as vegetables were usually served at dinner in

with, or after the soup, fish, or meat, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert

Misconception number five, you should wash your chicken before cooking it. Most sources, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, advise against this for one major reason, food safety

Washing a chicken in the sink can cause all that gross, raw chicken bacteria just to spread around your kitchen

This bacteria includes Salmonella and Campylobacter, which are responsible for a combined 1.9 million cases of foodborne illnesses in the U.S. annually

Plus washing chicken isn really necessary because once you cook it at 165 degrees Fahrenheit or higher that bacteria will be killed anyway Take that bacteria Misconception number six white chocolate is chocolate

White chocolate contains no chocolate. Its ingredients are sugar, cocoa butter, milk, vanilla, and lecithin

This tends to confuse people because cocoa butter sounds like what we might put in chocolate

and cocoa butter does come from the cocoa bean. Basically, when the bean is cracked, the contents are turned into chocolate liquor

This liquor can be separated into cocoa solids and cocoa butter. To be considered chocolate, a product must contain cocoa solids

Sorry, white chocolate, but I don't know what you are. Misconception number seven, adding salt to boiling water will cook food faster

The idea behind this misconception actually makes a lot of sense. If you took chemistry, you'll know that salt water has a different boiling point

so it should make your pasta cook faster. But in reality, if you add 29.2 grams of salt

the boiling point increases by a mere half degree Celsius. Not only is that not a noticeable difference

you also likely wouldn't ever add that much, considering that is a full five teaspoons of salt

To noticeably change the water's boiling point, your food would be disgustingly salty

Misconception number eight, the stuff coming out of your meat is blood. Your red meat actually has a lot of water in it

When that water combines with the protein myoglobin, what results is a liquid that resembles blood

Animals like chickens and fish don have a lot of myoglobin so that why we consider them white meat Red meat is animals who have more myoglobin The more you know about meat blood Misconception number nine foods cooked with alcohol are non

Many believe that when they cook with alcohol, like wine, the alcohol gets burned off in the process

But according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, how much alcohol that evaporates depends on how you're cooking

For instance, if the alcohol is added to boiling water towards the end of the cooking process

85% of the alcohol might stay in your food. But if you braise food with alcohol for two and a half hours

around 5% of the alcohol is left. My method involves putting the wine in a glass while I cook

and then when I'm done cooking, 0% of the wine is left. It's incredible. It's like magic

Misconception number 10, microwaves cook food from the inside out. Microwaves actually heat food from the outside

A lot of people believe this misconception because their microwave-heated food is hotter in certain layers than others

But this has to do with the content of those layers. layers that contain more water are easier for the microwave to heat because they are more absorbent

sometimes the more absorbent layer lies just beneath the surface of food hence the confusion

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