Pumpkin Facts
A Short List of Pumpkin Facts
• A pumpkin is a squash from the gourd family. They are grown world-wide for eating, for animal feed, and for ornamentals. Six of the seven continents can grow pumpkins – Antarctica can't produce them. The leading producers of pumpkins are the United States, India, Mexico and China.
• Pumpkin growers hold competitions to see who has the largest pumpkin. Festivals are held, where prizes are awarded. The town of Half Moon Bay, in California, holds one such festival every year, and the attendance is generally over a quarter of a million people. The world record pumpkin, facts say, weighed 1689 pounds, and was grown in Massachusetts.
• Although pumpkins are eaten by humans and fed to animals, most pumpkins are used for jack-o-lanterns in the fall. If you plan to cook with pumpkin, select sweet or pie pumpkin, facts point out. They are smaller than the types used for decorations, and their fruit is sweeter. Pumpkins are used to make pies, breads and soups.
• When selecting a pumpkin, look for one that has about two inches remaining of its stem. Steer clear of pumpkins that have soft spots or blemishes. Any shape is fine, but it needs to be heavy.
• A pumpkin's bright orange exterior will tell you right off the bat that this fruit is full of beta-carotene, which is an important antioxidant. In the human body, beta-carotene is converted to Vitamin A, and is helpful for many bodily functions.
• A one-cup serving of pumpkin, without anything added, has forty-nine calories. It gives you 12 mg of Vitamin C, 3 mg of Vitamin E, and 37 mg of calcium. It also has 3 grams of dietary fiber.
• The total United States production of pumpkin in 2006 was 101.3 million dollars. The top producing states are Ohio, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania. About ninety to ninety-five percent of all the processed pumpkins in the U.S. were grown in Illinois, in 2006.
• The biggest pumpkin pie ever baked was almost six feet across, and weighed over three hundred pounds. They used eighty pounds of pumpkin, facts state, thirty-six pounds of sugar and twelve dozen eggs, and it took six hours to fully bake.
• Some more pumpkin facts:
• Pumpkin seeds, roasted, make a great snack.
• In the colonies, pumpkins weren't used for filling of pies; they were used to make the crust.
• Pumpkins were believed to be helpful for curing snake bites and removing freckles, many years ago.
• The pumpkin's name came from the Greek word “pepon”, which meant “large melon”.
• Pumpkins contain ninety percent water.
• Native Americans once roasted strips of pumpkin in fire.
• People who lived in the colonies sliced off the pumpkins' tops, removed all the seeds and filled the pumpkin with honey, milk and spices. It was baked in ashes.
• Native Americans used to flatten pumpkin strips, dry then and make mats from them. They called pumpkins “isqoutm squash”. And they used pumpkin seeds for medicine and food.