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July
4, 2002:
Junk Food Facts
Interview
with Eric Spitznagel, author of The
Junk Food Companion
Mike
Carruthers:
We eat more junk food in this country than anywhere else in the
world.
Eric
Spitznagel:
Americans
consume 20.7 pounds of candy per person every year. Roughly
12% of Coca-Cola is drunk with or instead of breakfast.
Eric Spitznagel,
author of the book The
Junk Food Companion, has many fascinating facts and figures
about junk food.
Jimmy
Dewar, the man who invented Twinkies, ate two Twinkies every
day until his death in 1985. Before appearing in a Christmas
print ad in 1935, Santa Claus was typically portrayed as a tall,
thin, hollow-cheeked man. It could safely be assumed that drinking
Coke made Santa Claus fat.
And Eric
says all ketchup is not the same. Or is it?
I remember
as a kid, arguing the difference between ketchup and "fancy"
ketchup. To me, there was a very distinct difference between
the two. Fancy ketchup is fancy (laughs). That's about all I
could figure out! Also, fancy ketchup, it comes in those individual
packets. You can't buy fancy ketchup in the grocery store, which
always makes you feel a little special when you go to those
fast-food joints. If it is true that you can find fancy ketchup
somewhere outside of a fast-food restaurant, I would love to
hear about it.
And Eric
has one more interesting fact about Coca-Cola.
All of
the Coca-Cola consumed in the world in one year would fill more
than 3.5 million bathtubs.
You can
get transcripts on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net.
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's "Something You Should Know".
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