TURKEY DAY FACTS:
– 46 million Turkeys will be eaten tomorrow (thats 736 million pounds of Turkey meat) in the USA
– Nearly 100% of those 46 million dinner plate Turkeys were artificially inseminated…those Turkey’s can’t “do it.”
– The vast majority of the domesticated Turkeys in the USA are Broad-Breasted Whites that weight between 38-40 pounds. Broad-Breasted White males has such large breast muscles that they are unable to copulate with females, thus the females must be artificially inseminated
– 248 million Turkeys were raised for slaughter in the USA during 2011 with a net worth of over $4.37 billion (MN, NC, MO, VA, IN raise the most)
– Turkeys and Cranberries are native to North America
– 750 million pounds of cranberries were grown by USA farmers in 2011 (WI, MA grow the most)
– 2.4 billion pounds of sweet potatoes were grown in the USA in 2011 (CA, NC, LA grow the most)
– 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins grown in USA in 2011 (CA, IL, NY, OH grow the most)
– Wild Turkeys run 20 mph, fly at 55 mph, sleep in trees, and conned Ben Franklin into thinking they’re smart and shoulda been the National Bird
– Best Turkey Rumor: Turkeys can have heart attacks: turkeys in fields near the Air Force test areas over which the sound barrier was broken were known to drop dead from the shock of passing jets.
– Tryptophan from Turkey meat makes you sleepy after dinner?
Everyone loves to blame and talk about the Tryptophan in Turkey meat and how it is solely responsible for the “food coma” effect after eating a Turkey Day meal. Well, that’s B.S. People talk about Tryptophan like it’s a drug…it ain’t. It’s an essential amino acid (meaning our bodies can’t synthesize it, so we have to ingest it) that is found in lots of everyday foods and in low concentrations in Turkey.
The real culprit of Turkey Day food comas is likely booze, high calorie intact, holiday stress, and the high amount of carbohydrates ingested during the meal. High carbohydrate meals produce increased levels of sleep-inducing melatonin in the brain via very indirect internal mechanisms.