Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Five Fun And Useless Thanksgiving Facts

1) The average person consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day. (that's nearly twice as many calories as an adult male should consume in a day)
2) Israelis eat more turkey per year per capita than any other nation. (about 12 kg.)
3) Turkeys are known to spend the night in trees. (really? how bizarre)
4) Turkeys can have heart attacks. (Dozens of turkeys dropped dead of heart attacks when U.S. Air Force planes broke the sound barrier nearby.)
5) Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims did not have big buckles on their clothing, shoes, or hats. Buckles did not come into fashion until the late 1600s (about 50 years after the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621.)

6 comments:

Leora said...

That buckles fact is quite useful. My daughter might dress up as a pilgrim for family who is visiting (we are serving Chinese food - take out - the turkey gets served on Friday night). I'll make sure she doesn't wear a buckle as part of the costume.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Anonymous said...

Amusing facts, thanks for sharing. And I have a parshah post this week!

NonymousG said...

"turkeys can get heart attacks"

aw, poor turkeys!

Anonymous said...

I'm nominating you for the Heartfelt Blogger award. Don't knock yourself out, the rules are you can nominate up to 9 blogs and I nominated exactly one.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the factoids. I shared the calorie consumption one with friends at our Israeli Thanksgiving on Friday night. Truly frightening. What are people eating????

Turkeys are notoriously stupid birds. did you ever hear about how they are supposed to drown by looking up when it's raining? I never knew if that was true.

It's wild turkeys (like the ones who parade across my parents' lawn in Vermont) who roost in trees--not the massive butterball kind you see in the stores that look like they couldn't float, much less fly. They do so to avoid being eaten by predators like foxes.

And a friend reminded me that Israelis eat so much turkey because beef is expensive, pork and shellfish are non-options, and you just get sick of chicken once in a while. Other kosher options include ostrich, buffalo, and venison, but one rarely sees those things.

I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving.

Melissa said...

Fascinating facts.