9 mind-boggling food facts we learned from Reddit

From time to time, Reddit can teach us some interesting things -- such as what a "lifetime supply" really is, or that we spend waaaay too much time on Reddit. In this case, we combed the annals of their TIL (Today I Learned) subreddit in order to find some seriously intriguing, disturbing, and downright awesome things about the foods and drinks we consume every day. Or will eat every day, in the case of petroleum jelly.

vending machine
Wikipedia

Hmm, do I want to spend my gold coins on holy water (A1) or poison hemlock (A2)? (link)

turkeys
Wikipedia/Yathin S Krishnappa

Sounds like the turkeys could use a mansierre. Or some bros. (link)

petroleum jelly
Wikipedia/Kiyok

Sir Robert Augustus Chesebrough (aka "Robby Jelly") apparently also recovered from a serious lung infection in his mid-50s by having a "nurse" cover him head-to-toe in Vaseline. He died in New Jersey in 1933, because, obviously. (link)

orange
Wikipedia/JanRehschuh

"Geoluhread" literally means "yellow-red", and was many Old English-speakers' third-favorite color after red-blue and blue-yellow. (link)

bees
Wikipedia/Wojsyl

The technical name of the chemical is isoamyl acetate, or, as some no-doubt genius marketer termed it, "banana oil". It's like olive oil, except people will think you're weird for having it in your kitchen. (link)

the old 76 house
Wikipedia/Rolf Müller

Just goes to show -- get someone enough drinks and they'll start proclaiming anything a sovereign nation. (link)

niels bohr
Wikipedia/Niels Bohr Institute

This one's pretty well-deserved -- the dude basically conceived the modern concept of an atom, and helped to found CERN. It also helped that he lived next door to a brewery in the first place, so... get on that, contemporary inventors! (link)

milk
Wikipedia/Pingpongwill

In 1897, German dude Wilhelm Krische was commissioned with creating an alternative to blackboards, and naturally came up with the idea for Galalith after a few late-night milk binges with his chemist buddy, Adolph Spitteler. Unfortunately, it was later outperformed by oil-based plastics, jugs of which now contain milk. OH, THE IRONY! (link)

bob hawke
Flickr/Eva Rinaldi

Good ol' Bobby chugged 1.4 liters of beer while on his Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford -- from a sconce pot, no less, which're relics of a time when punishments were meted out by ordering offenders to drink a tankard of ale. That'll teach them? (link)

Adam Lapetina is a food/drink staff writer at Thrillist, and he knows when the narwhal bacons, but is hesitant to reveal this fact. Oh crap, wait -- he just did. Read his musings on Twitter at @adamlapetina.