Page 40 - Business Facts

Brits drink 165,000,000 cups of tea every day.

That means Brits drink 60.2 billion cups of tea per year. Sixty-six percent of the British population drink tea on a regular basis. It is definitely a country of tea, and Brits drink more tea than in any other country. Ireland is the second largest tea-drinking country, an unsurprising statistic given its proximity to Britain. 

Comparatively, Britain consumes only 70 million coffees in a day. So how does the average Englishman or woman drink their tea? The majority of tea (96%) is drunk with teabags, though it is not uncommon for tea to be made with loose leaves. 

It is also extremely common for milk to be added to tea, so common that 98% of tea in Britain is drunk with milk. 

Drinking tea has many benefits. For example, many types of tea have antioxidants, which stop free radicals (“unstable substances”) from affecting the body. Hot tea can even be refreshing in hot weather because it causes sweating, which cools the body off! 

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If you spent $10,000 a year on lottery tickets, statistically it would take 2,809 years to win!

With odds like that, it’s amazing that anyone actually plays lottery games. It’s a testament to the power of hope that anyone ever believes enough to buy a single ticket! 

Most people don’t know anyone who has won more than a few dollars. In fact, playing the lottery involves more risk of death, than chance of winning. You are 16 times more likely to die in a car accident on the way to buy a ticket, than to win the lottery. What’s more, your odds for winning don’t go up unless you buy thousands. 

A few more facts: 

• You are more likely to be struck by lightning 5,000 times, than win the lottery; 
• You are 146 times more likely to die in a fireworks accident; 
• You are 8000 times more likely to be murdered.

 With this in mind, it’s time to figure out what to spend your money on instead. Imagine, if instead of spending $20 a month on lottery tickets you put it into a mutual fund. 

If you did that from ages 25-65, you would have $93,626.41 in your account. Now that’s a lot of money, and it’s got a lot better chance of actually happening. 

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McDonald’s McRib contains over 70 ingredients.

Last year marked the “McRib’s” 30th anniversary. The idea for it was conceived during McDonald’s Executive Chef Rene Arend’s trip to Charleston, South Carolina. 

After trying a variety of pulled pork sandwiches from throughout the city, he thought the flavor combination “should really go over.” 

And it kind of had to, because McNuggets were so popular that McDonald’s couldn’t keep up with demand, and they needed a new product. The sandwich’s 70 different ingredients includes “pig tripe, heart, and scalded stomach” as well as azodicarbonamide, ammonium sulfate, ethoxylated mono, etc. 

If it’s any consolation however, contrary to the urban legend, the sandwich does not contain Kangaroo meat. 

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3 Musketeers candy got its name because it used to come with 3 flavors!

The 3 Musketeers candy originally came divided into three pieces. Each piece was a different flavor: one vanilla, one strawberry, and one chocolate. The candy is made by Mars and was introduced by the company in 1932. 

Although, the company no longer sells the 3-flavored bar, they offer their 3 Musketeer bar in mint and also as a double crisp bar. To make their classic bar now, they use just their chocolate nougat. The nougat starts out in huge slabs, and then they cut it into the right size for the bars. They then finish off the bar by coating it in a layer of milk chocolate. 

The bars are made in Chicago, Illinois, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania and Newmarket, Canada. And, if you ever wondered what a nougat actually is, you’re in luck. A nougat is made with whipped eggs and sugar syrup. A flavoring can also be added. The end result is a frothy, soft candy filling that makes up the insides of a 3 Musketeers candy.

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Ever wondered why the flavor is called “blue raspberry?” Read on!

Raspberries are usually NOT blue. In fact, the color blue is fairly uncommon amongst fruits. Why exactly, then would sweets makers specify the flavor as blue raspberry? It's rare to see 'green' and 'purple' grape flavors, for example. 

It all started with ice pops. Very popular in the 60’s and 70’s, ice pops like Otter Pops came in a variety of colors and flavors. The sheer number of flavors that were red colored fruits had started to confuse the ice pop makers and the customers. Cherry, strawberry, raspberry, and watermelon were all red, and it was difficult to distinguish them. 

At first, using different shades of red was no problem, until one of the dyes used was deemed a carcinogen by the FDA and was banned. So how did the makers of ice pops respond? They had plentiful access to blue dye, but had no flavors that needed it.

They started to introduce the flavor of the Whitebark Raspberry (or blue raspberry) with the blue food coloring, and even though the color of the berry is completely different from the color of the dye, the problem with the dyes was solved. 

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