The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving. Because of this, as we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We’ve decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Bean fun facts.

Bean Fun Facts: Beans are the large seeds of certain types of plants, and are technically a fruit.

  • January 6th is National Bean Day. It also falls on the day in which geneticist, Gregor Mendel, who famously used bean and pea plants to test his theories on inheritance died in 1884.
  • Beans have been cultivated by humans for 6,000 years.
  • In Nicaragua, newlyweds are given a bowl of beans for good luck.
  • In ancient Greece, minor public officials were elected by putting one white bean with a load of black beans inside a “bean machine.” Whoever picked the white bean got the job.
  • An archaeologist in the 1980’s working in New Mexico came upon a clay pot sealed with pine tar containing bean seeds that were 1,500 years old…and they grew!
  • Beans can be made into burgers, cakes, drinks, pies, fudge, muffins, jewelry, furniture (bean-bag chairs!), toys, and musical instruments.
  • The world’s largest bean pods can grow up to 5 feet long.

 Bean Fun Facts We Missed

Please feel free to let us know if we may have missed some bean fun facts in the comment section below. We always love to add to these lists. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia: Fun Facts about Beans.

Find all of the National Food Holidays to spice up your food truck menu specials throughout the year.