As some folks head to the supermarkets to buy Thanksgiving’s favorite.Traditional foods are a large part of Thanksgiving celebrations. Many families include the entire family in the food preparation. Traditional foods include turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, cornbread, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Many people serve pie for dessert at the end of the meal. Popular pie flavors are pumpkin, pecan, sweet potato, and apple.
The main staple though is turkey.
Here are some interesting facts about turkey that you most likely never knew.
- As far back as 1000 A.D., Native American Indians raised turkeys for food. Aztec Indians in Mexico were raising them as early as 200 B.C.
- Turkeys originally existed in the eastern US. and Mexico.
- Turkeys are actually a type of pheasant.
- The heaviest turkey weighed in at 86 pounds. Please pass the stuffing!
- Mature turkeys have about 3,500 feathers. I wonder who took the time to count them?
- The turkey industry grosses over $1billion a year.
- The Average American consumes over 15 pounds of Turkey per year.
- Americans will cook over 45 million turkeys on Thanksgiving Day.
- 235 million turkeys were raised in 2014. The record is 302.7 million in 1996.
- Over 770 million pounds of cranberries are consumed on Thanksgiving.
- Turkey, like poultry, is lower in cholesterol than beef an many other meats. The dark meat (thigh, legs,) contains more fat and cholesterol than white meat. So, that’s why dark meat tastes so good!
- Male Turkeys are called “Toms” or “Gobblers”, female turkeys are called “Hens” and baby turkeys are called “poults”.