Facts You Didn't Know About Your Favorite Junk Foods

Even those of us who strive to stay relatively healthy and avoid processed snacks know that there's nothing quite like the lure of junk food. Whether you have a sweet tooth — and go for candy or chocolates —  or a salty tooth — and grab bags of potato chips, processed snacks can be addictive.

But no matter how far you go back with your favorite junk foods, how much do you really know about it — other than the taste, of course?

From the origin of Doritos to the real story behind the bright pink color of bubblegum and whether or not Twinkies have an infinite shelf life, these amusing pieces of junk food trivia are just like Pringles: Once you pop the fun (and fascinating, useless trivia) you just can't stop. Some of them must just make your favorite cheat day snack go down even easier... and some might put a nasty taste in your mouth. 

You may have heard this bizarre snack rumor before, but the myth is true! Despite being a super-processed sweet (and the most popular cookie in America!) Oreos are technically vegan. The only ingredients in the cookies are unbleached enriched flour, sugar, palm and/or canola oil, cocoa, high fructose corn syrup, leavening, salt, soy lecithin, and chocolate. All of those ingredients are actually vegan. PETA even lists Oreo products as part of its list of the top 20 "accidental vegan foods"

But we can only say that Oreos are technically vegan because Oreo says their products may be cross-contacted with milk, and therefore it is not guaranteed to be 100 percent-free of all dairy products. So vegans, beware — eat these cookies at your own risk, unless you're not afraid of a little dairy cross-contamination. Ultimately it's the Oreo consumer's decision whether or not to categorize the cookie as truly vegan, just like it's every Oreo consumer's decision to bite, twist or dunk.

Kit Kats may be one of the most popular Halloween candies in America, but have you ever wondered what's inside the crispy confection? It's not just chocolate filling or whole wafers. Get ready for this mind-blowing inception: Kit Kats are filled with the remnants of ground-up Kit Kats.

The mind-boggling fact actually came to light thanks to a British documentary called BBC Two's Inside the Factory where a factory worker on the assembly line for the popular candy explained that any broken or discarded Kit Kats "go into re-work, where they're used for the fillings for the wafer."

Nestle confirmed the factory worker's revelation with The Today Show: "The 'chocolayer' — the filling between the wafer of a Kit Kat — is made from cocoa liquor, sugar and a small amount of re-worked Kit Kat," a Nestlé UK spokesperson said. "Please note, re-worked Kit Kat is product which cannot be sold."

Besides flossing more, what's the number one piece of cliched dental hygiene advice from almost any dentist? "Cut back on the sugar!" That's why we find it pretty ironic that the cotton candy machine was actually invented by a dentist! Perhaps he thought people would eat sugar-free candy floss?

According to The Daily Meal, the invention of the cotton candy machine is actually credited to William James Morrison, a dentist and inventor from Nashville, Tennessee. As the story goes, Morrison worked with his friend, John C. Wharton — a confectioner — to create a device that would take the grueling manual labor out of spinning sugar.

Together, they created a machine known as the "electric candy machine" that used air in a spinning central chamber to force sugar through a wire gauze and create the fluffy, cloud-like confection we know today as cotton candy. Tell this story to your dentist the next time he scolds you for cavities!

Veggie Straws and other similar snacks have grown in popularity recently, and why not? They have the same salty, satisfying crunch as chips but they're healthier because instead of greasy potatoes, they're made of dehydrated vegetables... right?

Unfortunately, this guilt-free snack is too good to be true, and Veggie Straws was actually sued in 2017 by two duped customers who claim that the Veggie Straws packaging is misleading because it does not contain whole vegetables. Instead, the ingredient list includes potato flour, potato starch, corn starch, and "vegetable byproducts" like tomato paste and spinach powder. The lawsuit claimed that consumers were not actually getting any nutritional benefits by consuming these vegetable byproducts, according to The New York Post.

Earlier this year, Hain Celestial Group (the makers of Veggie Straws) won this court battle, and the court said that the Veggie Straws packaging was not misleading since the ingredients did technically come from vegetables. Still, don't be fooled into thinking that these salty snacks are the miracle, nutritious alternative to potato chips — and be sure to munch in moderation!

Nutella may be one of the most popular food spreads in the world (and honestly, who doesn't love sticking a spoon into that jar of chocolate-hazelnut goodness), but you probably don't realize how much the world is really obsessed with Nutella.  

According to National Geographic, Ferrero — the makers of Nutella — use up one-quarter of the world's hazelnut supply. The worldwide demand for hazelnuts — mostly to produce gobs of that sweet spread — has resulted in a shortage and farmers struggle to keep up.

"It's a predicted shortage — really, because of Nutella and hazelnut candies," Tom Molnar told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "There's really not enough hazelnuts to have that demand be met as it grows, so the big candy companies are sort of scrambling."

Nutella competitors claim there is a market-hogging conspiracy concerning Ferrero's grips on the market, but National Geographic says that Ferrero just may have smarter business sense.

Rutgers professors are currently working on a hazelnut variety that can be grown in colder climates.

Bubblegum is the familiar confection that no one really questions. Bubblegum flavor is an unmistakable (yet unidentifiable) flavor, and the gum itself is nearly always a bright pink color that's earned its own Crayola color. But why is bubblegum such a bright pink color?

As the story goes, in 1928, Walter E. Diemer, a worker for Fleer Chewing Gum company, was experimenting with a gum that could allow you to blow bubbles but still keep on chewing the gum after the bubble popped — later to be named Dubble Bubble.

After adding a little latex to their original formula, the chewing gum was able to last a long time. But unfortunately, the gum was an "unappetizing grey" color, so the workers scrambled to make their new bubblegum invention a more pleasing color. The only dye available was bright pink, and that's how it was originally sold in stores and became a chewy tradition.

As you may well imagine, most junk food is designed to be addictive, hence the high levels of sugar and fat content that your body craves. But Cheetos are on a whole other level.

"This is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure," Stephen Witherly, a food scientist told New York Times Magazine, referring to Cheetos.

He said that what makes Cheetos uniquely addictive (besides the salt and fat content and the strangely delicious orange dust we've come to associate with indulgent snacking), is how quickly they dissolve.

"It's called vanishing caloric density," Witherly said. "If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there's no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever."

Cheetos also achieve the perfect "bliss point" which, according to Pop Science, is the level of flavor intensity achieved by snack foods that is just salty/sweet enough to keep us wanting more, but not overwhelming enough so that our brain gets tired of the strong flavor.