In the 1830s, ketchup was sold as a medicine.
An Ohio physician, John Cook Bennett, claimed tomato ketchup could cure indigestion, diarrhoea and jaundice. His recipes were turned into tomato pills that were sold across the United States.
Why is this true?
Tomatoes had only recently been accepted as food in America, and tonics and patent medicines were a booming business. The medical claims faded, but tomato ketchup as a condiment stuck.
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Food facts sit right where biology, chemistry and history overlap. A fruit that is technically a berry, a spice worth more per gram than silver, a sweetener that never spoils in a sealed jar — the reasons usually come down to sugar, acid, water and how long humans have been moving plants around the planet. Each entry explains the mechanism in plain language, and links to a source if you want the longer version.