Carrots won't give you superpowers and, no, gum doesn't stay in your stomach for seven years
Carrots will give you superpowers, gum stays in your stomach for years, and sugar makes your children hyperactive little monsters. Chances are, you've heard these statements before and have absorbed them as fact. Don't feel ashamed; we all have. The internet is full of food facts that, in reality, are just myths passed down from generation to generation.
It can be tricky separating the fact from the fiction, but we'll give it a go.
Eating carrots will give you night vision
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As much as we'd all love to develop superpowers, it's not going to happen by eating carrots.
The myth came about during the Second World War when rumours cropped up that British pilots had night vision powers thanks to their healthy diet of carrots.
The rumours were actually so widespread, they were used as a form of propaganda.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Though the promise of night vision isn't true, carrots do contain a healthy dose of vitamin A which is what your body uses to synthesise the pigment in your eyes that operates in low light conditions. This means that if you have a vitamin A deficiency, seeing in darker conditions may be more difficult. Eating carrots will rectify this, but only to the point of an average person's vision.
Sadly, it seems superhuman night vision exists only in the world of comics.
Gum stays in your stomach for seven years
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"Be careful, don't swallow your gum, it'll stay in your stomach for years."
This is a phrase many of us will be familiar with, having been told it by worried parents as we popped bubbles and loudly chewed our gum. Fortunately, it's nothing but a myth.
The idea that any substance could sit in your stomach for years is a strange one: imagine the havoc it would wreak on your body.
Any food substances we swallow are dissolved and excreted within days - with most foods dissolving within hours, and gum is not exempt. Pediatric gastroenterologist David Milov told the magazine Scientific American that he can say "with complete certainty that comes does not stay in you for seven years".
"If it did, that would mean that every single person who ever swallowed gum within the last seven years would have evidence in the digestive tract. On occasion we'll see a piece of swallowed gum, but usually it's not something that's any more than a week old."
Yes, all those years you spent fretting about the piece of gum you accidentally swallowed when you were seven were completely unneccesary.
Crusts will give you curly hair
(Getty)
One of the stranger myths out there; the idea that eating crusts will make your hair curly. Whether or not you have curly or straight hair depends entirely on your genes. Eating a diet heavy in bread crusts - or any food for that matter - isn't going to change your genetic make up.
The exact origin of this bizarre myth is still unknown, though some believe it originated 300 years ago in Europe when curly hair was seen as a symbol of health and prosperity. Those who could afford to eat were generally healthier, so people began to believe bread and curly hair were related.
Sugar makes children hyperactive
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As much as you may swear that a slice of birthday cake sends your child on a sugar-induced flurry of bad behaviour, the science just doesn't back it up.
• Did banning sugar turn my kids into sweet little angels?
In 1994, a double blind research study found that eating sugary foods didn't affect the behaviour or cognitive skills of the children involved. Another studyfound no link between sugar and hyperactivity and a study entitled "Effects of sugar ingestion expectancies on mother-child interactions" found that parents were more likely to say their child was hyperactive even if the sugar they'd been given was a placebo.
There's plenty of reasons not to let your child overdose on cakes, cookies and chocolates, but the phrase "sugar rush" isn't one of them.
If you eat watermelon seeds one will grow in your stomach
(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)
This isn't a myth we imagine anyone over the age of five would buy into, but just in case...
A lack of oxygen and sunlight won't allow any seed you swallow to sprout in your stomach.
Watermelon seeds are actually very good for you as they contain potassium, magensium, calcium, iron and zinc.
Eating cheese before bed will give you nightmares
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We have Charles Dickens to blame for this one. In 'A Christmas Carol' a still in-denial Scrooge blames the appearance of the ghosts on "eating a crumb of cheese" before going to bed.
And just in case you weren't convinced, the British Cheese Board have tested out the theory and found no relation between eating cheese before bed and an increase in nightmares.
White chocolate is chocolate
(Listsbuzz)
Many of us will have spent our whole lives believing the sweet creamy bars of heaven otherwise known as white chocolate are actually chocolate. We were wrong.
To be classified as chocolate, a product has to contain cocoa solids or cocoa liquor. White "chocolate" on the other hand, contains cocoa butter instead.
So why is it allowed to be called chocolate?
The European Union adopts a policy that states as long as it contains 20 per cent cocoa butter, 14 per cent total milk solids, 3.5 per cent milk fat and has no more than 55 per cent sugar content, you can label it white chocolate.
Your steak leaks blood when you cut it
It's easy to understand why many would jump to the conclusion that it's blood oozing from your steak as you slice into it, but it's not.
Almost all the blood in your meat is removed during the slaughter. The red liquid you find on your plate is actually just a lot of water mixed with a protein called myoglobin.
You need to drink 8 glasses of water a day
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Though staying hydrated is extremely important, you don't need to glug down eight glasses of water a day to do it.
The recommendation for drinking eight glasses of water a day came as health officials tried to match water requirements to calories requirements, without considering how much water you already get from other foods throughout the day.
In 2011, Margaret McCartney, a Glasgow GP, said the eight glasses a day recommendation was "not only nonsense, but thoroughly debunked nonsense".
Carbohydrates make you gain weight
(Andrew Crowley)
We all have a friend who swears by a "no carb diet" but research shows carbohydrates don't negatively impact your weight.
A 2002 study analysed the diets of over 10,000 Americans and found that those who ate the most carbohydrates had the lowest intake of calories.
Carbohydrates are beneficial to our health: so, instead of swearing them off completely, eat foods like legumes and whoel grain bread. These are called complex carbs and make you feel fuller for longer, meaning you eat less throughout the day.
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