Bonus: 9 Super Facts Hiding in your Supermarket

And then you can't just throw that out there and not share the facts, all right, so let me just share it with the audience. So basically, unlike Aunt Jemima or joe Is Suzu, who were pure marketing inventions and like the ideas of copywriters, Little Debbie was actually a real person. And she was the granddaughter of the company's founder. And what's strange is that her granddad used her image without her parents permission, and her parents were pissed about.

I bet they were, yeah, And of course years later she became an exact at their company and then so it all worked out. That's all you have to do to make somebody happy, all right. So that was the fact that Mango shared with us. I thought it was a good fact, and and and so Gabe then made a comment about how many interesting facts are just sitting on the shelves of the grocery store. And we just happened to be passing a Kroger on our way to dinner.

So that gives Mango an idea. And now I should preface this by saying, we're talking about the same Mango that so many listeners have described as always sounding happy, and many of them have said I feel like I can hear him smiling. But what they don't know is just how competitive Mango can be. So Mango just says pull over. I didn't say that. I think I said something like, I've got an idea. You can't get me pull into this parking lot. Well, I don't know if

that's how he said it. And in fact, we have Gabe with us here on the line. So so, so, Gabe, can you back me up a little on this one. I mean, I think he might have said I've got an idea, But yeah, the way he said it sounded urgent and earn enough, we should probably pull over. True, that's true. Any anyway, Mango then explains his idea. So so we'd each walk to the middle of the grocery store, and he said this with such a serious face. We

knew this something very real. And so then after saying one to three go, we'd all have sixty seconds to run two different parts of the store take pictures of three items that we then wanted to share facts about. But we'd have to be back in the center aisle before the sixty seconds was up, and if we were late, he said we'd be disqualified. And he didn't even want to hear our fact. Again, I didn't say any of that day. Packed me up here. We're getting kind of confrontational.

Don't put me in the middle of this, guys. I really I don't remember what he said exactly, but let's just say this was definitely a side of Mango I hadn't seen before. The man was ready to compete, all right. So so before I could even ask questions or confirm whether it was one to three and then we could go on three or whether it was one to three, go, I feel like Mango just screamed go, and then I found myself running like a madman all around the store.

It took me a few seconds to remember what we were actually trying to do. But so here's what you need to know the facts from this episode of there was volts of that sixty second dash. So now that you know who to thank or blame for this one, let's get started. Hey there, podcast listeners, welcome back to Part time Genius. Okay, So we talked about this ridiculous game that Mango put us up to, and for some reason,

Gabe and I agreed to. So we each pulled three facts from the grocery store, and Gabe as our lead researcher, We're gonna let you start off first. I can't even actually remember which direction you ran. I was so focused on my first stop. So so, so what did you find first? Right? So I made a bee line for the candy aisle and came away with a big bag

of jelly belly jelly bean. And I did that because I knew they would give me a chance to share some ridiculous facts that one of the most notorious jelly beans fans, none other than our forties president Mr Ronald Reagan's right, And yeah, it's it's no secret at this point that Reagan loved jelly beans, but I don't think most people know that he was particularly passionate about jelly bellies, and I mean for this arrangement he had with the company,

he actually began receiving twenty four pounds shipments every month during his time as governor of California, which, if you do the math, because about ten thousand, two hundred beans every thirty days, that is insane. I Yet, I've heard that Reagan was a big fan of jelly beans. Mango said, you'd heard that as well, But I didn't know that it was especially jelly bellies. And I didn't realize the quantities of these. But so why did he like them

so much? Anyway? Well, yeah, he first started eating him when he quit smoking in the early sixties, so they served a practical purpose, you know, beyond simple snacking. But Reagan also seemed to appreciate jelly beans is some kind of litmus test for the people he mad. So this one time he said, quote, you can tell a lot about a fella's character by whether he picks out all of one color or just grabs a handful. But anyway,

that's great. Yeah. So, as weird as all this sounds, the kipper's jellybelly love of there wouldn't have each peak insanity until he made it to the Oval Office. So, for instance, the company created a new blueberry flavor jelly bean for his inauguration back in one and they distributed more than three tons of them to the attendees, and

it only got crazier from there. So Reagan upped his standing order to a staggering seven hundred and twenty bags per month, over three hundred and six thousand jelly beans, and he has those distributed among the White House, Capitol Hill, and a few other federal buildings every month. And he even stocked the beans on Air Force One, where he kept them in a specially designed jelly bean holder that

wouldn't spill their in turbulace. Yeah. So, you know, plenty of Americans continue to honor President Reagan and all kinds of ways, but I think the most fitting one is this portrait of him made from ten thousand Jellybelly jelly beans that hangs in his Presidential library. And Simmy Valley, California, that's pretty incredible. Well, you got us off to a good start with your first fact, Mango, you wanna you

want to take the next one? Yeah, So I just went to the High Museum exhibit of Warhol in Atlanta from from Aisle seven come all the time, okay, And honestly, if you haven't gone, it is amazing. And I'm not even that big a Warhol fan, but seeing like all these giant mouths together on the purple wallpaper that Warhol had designed for the Paris exhibition, I mean, it is incredible. But of course, so when I passed the Campbell soup cans,

I I knew I had to snap a shot. And and there are a couple of things I love about the Campbell Soup series, Like the first is that Warhol loved the soup and how consistent every flavor was, Like he actually appreciated that tomato soup always tastes like the same tomato soup, which kind of plays a role in

the arts philosophy. And I also love that he hated that Campbell's discontinued some of the soups, Like he made a portrait of all the thirty two soups he could find at the time, but he actually wished that they still made his favorite soup, which was called mock Turtle. What is that? I know, It's apparently a Campbell soup that was supposed to taste like turtle soup. But uh, it's popular in London, but not not a mock turtleneck. No, no,

But here's my actual fact about the series. So in a book called I'll Be Your Mirror, which is a collection of Andy Warhol interviews, Warhol gripes that despite everything he did for Campbell's, they never sent him a single can of free soup, and he genuinely loved the product. It was kind of weird that they didn't send himself. That's pretty great. Actually, I had another fact that I was going to start with, But I do have a Warhole connection in one of my facts, all right, and

I'll get to that connection in just a second. But you know, I had to run as quickly as I could to the pop tart section. I know this wouldn't surprise you, Mango. So so Mango knows this about our family. But every year we go on a beach trip in the summer, and that's the one week of the year that my wife, Georgia, allows the kids and me to

eat as many pop tarts as we want. Otherwise we're never allowed to have pop tarts in the house, and so we'll buy like ten or fifteen boxes of these things to try, all the different flavors, all the nasty new ones, just for the sake of trying them. But here's the weird thing. I learned about pop tarts recently. So Kellogg actually wasn't really planning to make them, But in nineteen sixty four, their biggest competitor, Post announced it

was planning to release this new fruity pastry. It didn't have to be refrigerated, it could keep for months or even for years. But after the announcement, Post made two huge mistakes before they released it. So there's this fun article on Thrillist about this, which you should definitely check out. But the two big mistakes were one, they took way too long to get the recipe down and actually get the product out to market, and so it gave Kellogg

time to figure out a very similar product. Then the other big mistake, and this one is just baffling to me, is they decided to call the pastries. Are you ready for this name? It's called country squares. How great? We're talking about the nineteen sixties when the words square would have definitely meant something negative. No one had wanted to buy something like this, and so they tried to recover and rename them Toast Thems, but the damage had definitely

been done and pop Tarts were born. And now, as for the connection to war Haul, they definitely wanted to come up with something that was, uh, you know that that felt more hip than what than what Post had done, and Warhol was big at the time, and so they decided to call these things pop tarts. So pretty interesting. All right, Well, Gabe, let's go back to you. Actually, I think I ran into you on this aisle because I was also planning to try to get to a

serial Fact. But I'm pretty sure you were doing something at the same time. Did you end up getting a serial Fact? Yep? I did. Um. So, you know, like most people who grew up with Saturday morning cartoons, Breakfast Cereal holds a special place in my heart, hand in my pantry. Be tough sometimes, thank you, But it can be tough sometimes trying to choose which cereal to buy. But I found the picking which cereal to share fun facts about it is even harder. And that's because there's

just so many good ones out there. I am a kid, it hard, so you know, I had to go with one of my childhood's favorite Lucky Charms. Lucky Chimes has been around since the early sixties, and this was back when a product developer named John Hollohan first hit upon the idea of combining cheerios with bits of circus peanuts. You know those squshy orange marshmallows made to look like peanuts, do I that's like one of my top ten favorite candy.

Most people find nasty, which is just even better for me. Well, the design is the Lucky Charms marshmallows have actually changed a good deal along the way, so the pink heart is actually the only original marshmallow shape still and used today. Um. But here's the really crazy part. According to a press release from two thousand eight, each of the marshmallow bits or market company those are actually meant to represent one

of Lucky the leprecons magic powers. So the heart marshmallows granted the power to bring things to life, and the rainbows allow him to travel instantaneously from place to place. Wow. I don't know about you, Mango, but I feel like I have those kinds of powers of Lucky Charms. All right. Another good fact. Wow, Gabe, I'd say you're probably on the lead so far, So Mango what do you what

do you have next? So, because I can't get away from canned foods, I also had to snap a pick of Chef boyar D and and just like little Debbie, what's amazing to me is that the chef was a real person and actually an amazing chef, like Hector. Boyer D came to States as a kid and started working in kitchens at age eleven and by age seventeen he was a fixture at the Plaza Hotel. And and here's the most amazing part. He actually catered Woodrow Wilson's wedding.

Oh wow, that is crazy, that's pretty great. Well, somebody that did not cater Woodrow Wilson's wedding, and I was disappoint it to learn was not a real person. And that's Betty Crocker. Unfortunately, this is really disappointing to me. But she was actually created by General Mills and the twenties because of all these questions that were coming in

from customers. So there was an employee there named Agnes White, and she was one of the test recipe creators and cookbook writers, and she ended up portraying Betty and these radio ads anonymously. And she ended up even starting a show where they had this kind of test kitchen and advice column that they gave to their listeners, and she

was the host of that as Betty Crocker. But my favorite fact is that despite not being a real person, there was a survey from Fortune magazine that found Betty to be the second most admired woman in America after Eleanor Roosevelt. Of course, who was the first, lady. That's so crazy? Yeah, it's pretty good. All right, gavee. It's time for your last fact. Don't disappoint us. You've been great so far. What you got next? All right? So,

as a self professed French, frive them. I have to go with a personal favorite this last time and talk about hind catch up. Okay, so have to do with the iconic fifty seven varieties logo you find on their catch up bottles. So the number itself was the idea of the company's founder, Henry Heinz. In two he was riding a train through New York City when he spotted a sign advertising twenty one styles of shoes. So he just really lapsed onto this idea of advertising an oddly

specific number of products. So he adopted the fifty seven Varieties slogan for his own brand. You know, even though the company made something like sixty different products at the time, soft seven was just a completely made up number, right exactly. But there's one last thing about that number I wanted to talk about. On every glass bottle of Heinz Ketchup, there's an embossed number fifty seven on the neck right where the bottle narrows, and only about eleven of Ketchup

users know this. But the fifty seven is a secret weak spot that can be struck with a knife or fork to help to catch up poor faster. And since ketch Up typically pours from a glass bot at less than point one miles per hour, it's a pretty handy trick. I like that, you know, the speed that catch up travels out of the bottle. That's great, just off the top of my head. Yeah. But by the way, you guys know the difference between Ketchup and Captive, No, I've

I've always wondered that. Well, they're spelled and pronounced completely differently, and that's it. Yeah, Otherwise there's the exact same product. Alright, good deal. I'm glad you didn't lead with that fact. That's good. No good, that's three good facts from you gave all right, Mango your last one? You got one more for us? Yeah, definitely, So Will knows I love Ramen. After college when we were waiting tables and I didn't have that much money, like I I basically lived on

this stuff. And and so I wanted to take a second to talk about Momofuku Ando, who's the inventor of instant noodles and cup noodles, and the story of the founding is amazing. So basically, Japan was pushing American made bread on its citizens in the late fifties, kind of has the source of substance. And when Ando asked why not make noodles, which were more common in the cuisine, basically the response was that the fresh noodle manufacturing couldn't

supply and feed the country. So Ando set out to create noodles. And this is quote in the Japan Times that he said, which I absolutely love, and it's that peace will come to the world when people have enough to eat, and noodles were his contribution to that. So I just think that's really sweet and and there's so

much to say about him. But my favorite fact about Ramen and Ando is that he actually established a World Instant Noodle Summit that meets every two years, where noodle manufacturers that high standards for instant noodles, so like one of them is that the fill two lines on the inside of the cups for like how much water to pour in or or the produced on dates like that all came from him. But today they are over a

hundred billion units of instant noodles sold every year. And the reason you can reliably buy a bag and it will taste good is thanks to Momofuku, Ando and his Ramen collective. Wow, that is pretty incredible. But I feel like as much as we eat at the Ramen play downstairs, we've earned a seat at that summit. I feel like we should attend this summit. And and in fact, that is so good. The fact you've managed to talk about Ramen and chef Oyerty and Warhol all in one episode.

I don't know about you, Gay, but I feel like we have to give the crown to Mango on this one. Yeah. I mean, after what we saw on that car ride to Kroger, I'm thinking society you've never seen. Well, I have to admit it was a lot of fun. I'd be up for doing that again sometime, although maybe we we We just were very lucky that we didn't get kicked out of Kroger and before we ran around and got our facts. But that was a ton of fun. I hope everybody has enjoyed this. We'll be back tomorrow

with a regular episode. But if we've missed any great grocery related facts that you feel like you need to share with us, you know where to hit us up part Time Genius and How Stuff Works dot com, or you can call us on our two seven fact hot line. It is still seven seven. That's excellent. That's one eight four four pt genius. We've had a blast hearing from so many of you recently, but thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time. Thanks again for listening.

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