10 Food Lies Your Parents Probably Told You

When you're little you think that your parents know everything, so when they tell you that carrots help you see in the dark or that spinach makes your strong, you believe them.
Curiously, everyone's parents seemed to have the same lies to tell, so we asked around and collected 10 of the best lies that people were told about their food.

1. Bread crusts will make your hair curly
Now that we're all grown up we know that it's pretty unlikely that eating bread crusts will do anything to your hair…but that doesn't mean it isn't good for you. In fact there is evidence of a higher concentration of nutrients in the crust than the center.
Keep in mind that when it comes to bread, if you want to get the most out of your slice you are better off with wheat bread over white – in fact, when you order a Kcal burger you can choose the bread you want! (all of them are good for you though, just choose the one you love!)
Legend has it that this particular food myth may have started in Europe several hundred years ago, where a thick head of curly hair was known to be a sign of good health.

2. Haggis is an animal that lives in Scotland
Parents love to make up stories to get their kids to eat their dinner, and in Scotland it's no different. In fact parents went so far as to make up a mythical animal to avoid telling their little ones where their traditional haggis really comes from (it's actually made from oats and the organs of sheep).
Wild haggis is said to be native to the Scottish Highlands and it has legs that are different lengths so it can run around one the mountains and hillsides of the countryside – but only ever in one direction.

3. Eating cheese before bed will give you nightmares
In 2005 the British Cheese Board funded a study to see if there was any foundation to this lie, the conclusion? There was no evidence to link bad dreams and cheese; but they did find that cheese might be able to influence what you dream about…
The secretary of the British Cheese Board, Nigel White claims that “the science of that, we think, is that there is an essential amino acid in milk called tryptophan. Now, tryptophan is known to be something which is helpful in normalising sleep and reducing stress levels. That seemed to make sense to us. What was really wacky was that the type of cheese that people were eating seemed to give them different types of dreams.”
So what kind of dreams can the different cheeses give you?
• Blue cheese: Bizarre dreams.
• Red Leicester: Nostalgic dreams.
• Cheddar: Dreams about celebrities.
• Cheshire: No dreams.
• Brie: Relaxation for women, bizarre for men.
• Lancashire: New jobs.

4. If you eat the seeds from a piece of fruit, a tree will grow in your tummy
This was always an odd one, if you eat the seeds of an apple, orange or watermelon, then a plant will start to grow…first of all can we just take a minute to appreciate how terrifying this lie is. Secondly, it makes no sense when you think about logically, there are plenty of seeds you eat regularly and these were never considered part of the lie. What about strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, cucumbers…no internal gardening going on there, so what made apples, oranges and melons so special?
Fruit serves as the protective shell for seeds as they develop, and while accidentally eating a fruit seed may not lead to a plant growing inside you, some seeds are better for you than others.
In fact, the seeds of pears, papayas, watermelons and jackfruit are good for you, they can help lower your cholesterol, ease bowel issues, help digest protein and regulate your blood pressure. Other seeds are not so great, apple seeds for example, contain cyanide – you would have to eat a lot of seeds for it to poison you, around 200!

5. The moon is made of cheese
Everyone over the age of 10 knows that our neighbour the moon does not, in fact, consist of fatty dairy products despite what our elders tried to convince us of.
The earliest record of this farfetched story is from a medieval folk tale in which a ravenous wolf chases a fox, hoping to score an easy meal. Thinking fast, the fox convinces his pursuer that the moon's reflection on a nearby pond is actually a block of cheese floating on its surface and that the wolf must drink all of its water to get it. Eventually the wolf drinks too much and bursts, leaving the fox alive and victorious.
Even though everyone has always known that the chance of the moon really being made of cheese is highly unlikely every children's program from Tom and Jerry to Wallace and Gromit has made its fair share of moon cheese jokes.
In fact, on April Fool's Day in 2002 NASA claimed to have “proven” once and for all that the moon was made of cheese by releasing a photoshopped image with an expiration date printed on one of its craters.

6. If you swallow bubblegum it will stay in your tummy for years
Although gum is designed to be chewed and not swallowed, it isn't particularly harmful if swallowed. Despite what your parents told you, it doesn't take seven years to digest gum.
While it is true that your stomach cannot digest the gum, it doesn't stay in your stomach. It moves relatively intact through your digestive system and out the other end.

7. You shouldn't eat fish and then drink milk or you will get spots
Truly an old wives tale that has been told the world over but where did it come from? Well, it's no secret that both milk and fish are really nasty when they go off and in the days before refrigeration and pasteurization you can imagine how quickly things went off which could very easily cause food poisoning.
But spots? Well that's just untrue. There is no evidence to suggest that eating dairy and fish together will have any sort of effect on your skin. Don't believe me? Try the Kcal Salmon Ragut and see for yourself.

8. The ice cream van only plays it's tune when they have run out of ice cream
There is no rhyme or reason to this one other than your parents didn't want you eating ice cream.

9. If you try a new food you'll live 72 days longer
We're not sure where this came from or who made it up – we scoured the web and came up empty – but who's to say there isn't some truth to it? So why not try something new today?

10. Chocolate milk comes from brown cows and regular milk comes from black and white cows (no, no one knows where strawberry milk comes from)
There is some twisted logic to this one…chocolate milk is brown, the cow is brown…but it's really not true, any coloured cow produces milk. So do nuts, seeds and plants, so why not shake things up a little and try something new!