Interesting Mathematical Facts About Food.

 

While I researched how people discovered how long one should dip a Oreo cookie in milk for maximum enjoyment, I came across another fact or two on the cookie that spiked my interest.  This lead to looking for other facts about foods in general that were interesting so today, I'm sharing them with you just because they could make a really interesting warm-up, or way to catch student attention as you transition.

Lets start with the Oreo cookies. They were sold on March 6, 1912. Since that date, enough cookies have been made so if they were stacked one on top of another, the stack would reach the moon. Currently, over 40 billion a year are being produced.  On the other hand, if you layed them out so they were stacked  on top of each other, around the earth, the 40 billion cookies could wrap around the circumference of the earth 5 times.  Side note here: There have been over 50 flavors of Oreo produced since its initial release including one shaped as a football.

Remember the last time you ate cake?  The sides started to dry out once you began cutting it? Some one figured out how to cut it so this wouldn't happen but it was done back in 1906.  The suggested method is that instead of cutting the round cake into 8 to 12 slices, you cut a slice out of the middle the length of the diameter and then squish the two sides together so there is no cake surface exposed to air, only the frosting sides. This protects the inside and when you are ready for more cake, you slice a bit from both sides so the cut runs along the diameter and squish what is left of the cake together.  

Have you struggled with getting a new bottle of ketchup to start flowing.  You know the routine where you bound on the bottom, or stick a knife in it and suddenly it flows - all over everything.  The problem with ketchup is that it is a non-Newtonian fluid.  In other words, it sometimes acts as a solid and other times it acts as a fluid.  Those who make ketchup has made it so it is supposed to flow only at 147.84 feet per minute or about 2.464 feet per minute.  The best way to get the ketchup flowing is to shake the bottle for a bit, turn it upside down to get the ketchup in the neck, take the lid off, place the bottle at a 45 degree angle, tap the bottle with increasing strength until it flows.  

Do you always cut the bagel in half?  Did you know that one person figured out how to cut his bagel so it formed two interlinked parts and even made a YouTube video showing how to do it? It was absolutely fascinating to see how he did it but it would take a few tries to get it right. There is another video in which a mathematics professor of applied mathematics shows how to cut a bagel into a Möbius strip.  She points out that you only need to put cream cheese on one side of the bagel.  For those who want a video showing the two rings method (normal), two interlinked and the morbius, then check here.

Leave it to the British to figure out the mathematical formula to determine the best way to dunk biscuits into a cup of tea without having any crumbs in the bottom of the cup when done.  Basically you do not dunk the biscuit in sideways, rather you dunk it so the broad side goes into the tea.  Then when it's damp or wet, take it out and flip the biscuit 180 degrees so the wet side is on top and the dry side on the bottom. This allows the dry side to support the wet side.

Leave it to mathematicians to figure out how to cut a round pizza into 12 equal sided pieces where some have the crust edge and others don't.  The idea is that you cut the pizza end to end using a curved path three times to produce 6 pieces.  Then you cut each piece in half and you have 12 equal sized pieces. The cutting method is based on a monohedral disc tilling formula. 

If you want to take a more scientific method of making a grilled cheese on toast you are in luck.  Back in 2013, the Royal Society of Chemistry partnered with the British Cheese board to create the perfect formula for this.  They discovered that one should melt 50 grams of a hard cheese such as cheddar on one slice of white bread that is 10 millimeters thick.  It should be placed under a grill precisely 18 centimeters below the heating element for four minutes. 

So have fun sharing these tidbits with your students as a way of showing them that math is everywhere. Who knows, maybe one day you can have a bagel in class and show it in either the two rings or the Möbius strip to grab their attention.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.