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Ketchup has changed over the years from having to squeeze it out of those tiny packets to using a knife to coax it out of a glass bottle to the squeezable bottles that we use today.

The Crazy Facts You Should Know About Ketchup Include:

Ketchup, hold the tomatoes

Back in the day before ketchup went west, it was never seen in the company of tomatoes. The stuff preferred anchovies, walnuts, mushrooms, and kidney beans, among other things.

Feed the world

Heinz makes so much ketchup in fact that just counting single serve packets they make almost enough each year to give everyone on earth two servings. Indeed, 11 billion packets of ketchup is a hell of a lot of ketchup.

Three percent unpopular

So we've established that Heinz makes a lot of ketchup, and since they're not the only producer in the United States by a long way, you're probably asking “who is eating all that ketchup?” The slow red stuff can be found in 97 percent of homes in the US.

Ketchup, catsup, President Reagan

Ketchup and catsup are pretty much the same thing, except that ketchup might be a vegetable As a result of government budget cuts, schools were having trouble meeting the nutritional requirements for the food they were giving the kids. And so the USDA under President Ronald Reagan created regulations that basically said that anything that had the nutritional content of a vegetable could be considered one for the purposes of school lunches, and that included ketchup.

Fights cancer

Ketchup actually has the potential to help prevent cancer. That's because there are actually quite a lot of tomatoes in that sauce. Just four tablespoons of ketchup has the equivalent nutritional value as one medium sized tomato, and that includes the antioxidant lycopene which as well as fighting cancer also gives tomatoes their color.

Reduced speed limit

Anyone who has tried to get ketchup out of the classic Heinz glass bottle can blame the government for the frustration, because ketchup has an actual legal speed limit. In order to receive a grade A rating, ketchup can flow no faster than seven centimeters in 30 seconds. The limit used to be nine centimeters in 30 seconds, but it was revised in 1991.

It all ads up…

Heinz Ketchup's slow flow had become so iconic that in 1987 the company made an advertisement out of it, and cast the then unknown Matt LeBlanc as the star. Featuring some classic 1980s tunes, the ad saw LeBlanc placing the classic glass bottle on the top ledge of a building, before heading downstairs to buy a hotdog…which he then holds out just in time to catch the ketchup as it finally escapes.

Sucky world record

In February 2012 in Nuremberg, Germany, television reporter Benedikt Weber set the ketchup drinking world record by sucking up 14 ounces of ketchup in 32.37 seconds.

A runaway industry

In the early days of ketchup, the medicinal benefits were somewhat misunderstood, in 1835 it was being sold in pill form and was advertised to treat problems like indigestion and diarrhea.

Ketchup Just Got Interesting!

Now that you know all these facts about ketchup you can call yourself a true ketchup fan. Did you already know these facts about ketchup?

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Article Source: Grunge