Pumpkins are everywhere you turn this time of year, and it is pretty hard to escape the orange orbs. Pumpkins are actually pretty amazing when you learn about them. Here are some unusual and interesting pumpkin facts
* The word “pumpkin” come from the Greek “pepon” meaning large melon.
* I know, you’re thinking “Melon? Wha…?” but it’s true! Pumpkins are related to melons. They both belong to the Cucurbitacae family, as do both cantaloupe and cucumbers. Sounds weird, but when you think about it, canteloupes and pumpkins are pretty similar.
* It’s a fruit. I know, that’s also crazy, but it’s also true.
* Pumpkins first originated in Central America.
* Farmers grow 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins each year. Yes, billion.
* There are over 30 kinds of pumpkins.
* For each cup of pure pumpkin, there are 30 calories and 197% of the recommended daily value of Vitamin A.
* Pumpkins are 90% water, which may help explain that low calorie count.
* Pumpkins have approximately 500 seeds each. Those seeds are a good source of protein.
* Pumpkin flowers are edible. If you’d ever eaten them, I’d love to know in the comments if you enjoyed them.
* The largest pumpkin ever grown weighed more than 1 ton, 2,009 pounds to be precise, and was grown in Rhode Island in 2012. That’s a lot of pumpkin.
* It’s pretty seasonal, with 80% of the pumpkin supply available in the month of October.
* A large portion of the crop comes from the Midwest.
* Illinois produces most of the processed pumpkins in the United States. Ohio and Pennsylvania also produce a lot of pumpkins, as does California.
* Morton, Illinois, home to the Libby pumpkin plant, proclaimed itself the pumpkin capital. The town’s website explains that the designation comes from being the home to Nestle Food Company’s pumpkin processing plant where over 85% of the world’s pumpkin is canned each Fall.
Here are a few fun pumpkin jokes for you:
How do you mend a broken Jack-o-lantern?
With a pumpkin patch!
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