20 French Fry Facts

FRENCH FRY FACTS

Nutrition Facts

French fries, fast food

Amount Per 1 serving medium (117 g)

Calories 365

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 17 g 26%

Saturated fat 2.7 g 13%

Polyunsaturated fat 6 g

Monounsaturated fat 7 g

Trans fat 0.1 g

Cholesterol 0 mg 0%

Sodium 246 mg 10%

Potassium 677 mg 19%

Total Carbohydrate 48 g 16%

Dietary fiber 4.4 g 17%

Sugar 0.4 g

Protein 4 g 8%

Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 9%

Calcium 2% Iron 4%

Vitamin D 0% Vitamin B-6 20%

Vitamin B-12 0% Magnesium 10%

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

1. Kingdom of Belgium invented french fries. Belgians loved small fish captured from river. They fried them and ate them. Unfortunately, the rivers froze during winter months, cutting off the supply of fish. Belgians could barely stand the thought of not eating their favorite water creatures and ended up slicing potatoes into long slices to mimic the shape of those small fish and frying the sliced potatoes. They ate them as replacement for fish and this practice began all the way back in 1600s.
2. There is a french fry museum in Belgium. Friet Museum
3. The earliest known reference to French fries in English literature is in A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens refers to “Husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil”.
4. Thomas Jefferson gets the credit for introducing French fries to America when he served them at a White House dinner in 1802 after reportedly requesting, "potatoes, fried in the French manner.
5. Healthcare professionals insist fries clog your aorta, potatoes are rich in kukoamines, the molecule that lowers your blood pressure. Yes, you read that correctly; fries can lower your blood pressure. French Fries should be consumed in moderation as they are particularly high in carbohydrates. French Fries are high in fat as they are deep fried. Your risk of becoming overweight is increased when you consume these high-fat foods. They are particularly rich in trans fats and saturated fats.
6. Our body needs vitamin B6, also known as pyridoxine, this can be found in French Fries. Women may get even better benefits as B6 helps prevent bloating, menopause, and hormonal swings during the monthly cycle.
7. Americans eat more than 16 pounds of french fries every year, which comes to over 2 million tons!
8. The French fries sold at McDonald's are peeled, sliced and partially cooked at factories in Idaho.



A company executive demonstrates a fry vending machine on its installation in Brussels in 2013. Photo courtesy Getty Images

9. In the 1990s, Ore-Ida Foods had more than 300 vending machines that could make a piping-hot serving of fries in less than a minute using hot air. French fry machines are still around, though we couldn’t find any contemporary mentions of an Ore-Ida machine. Belgian grocery stores are home to a machine that will fry your potatoes in beef fat and spit them out in 90 seconds. Another prototype fry vending machine was launched at a Dutch university in 2015.
10. In a 2014 study, a pair of Greek researchers teamed up with the ESA to test how gravity affects deep frying. Using a centrifuge, they found that as gravity gets stronger, fries get crispier. The perfect crispy fry would be made at three times Earth’s gravity. Sadly for the astronauts on the International Space Station, the research indicates that fries in microgravity would be soggy and awful.
11. Pregnant and nursing women should avoid French Fries due to the presence of a cancer-causing agent called acrylamide.
12. In most of the English speaking world, thin cut and thick cut fries are called two different things, fries and chips, respectively.  In North America, it is typical  to simply call them all French fries and, when they are distinguished, it is usually just by adding an adjective, rather than using a completely different word: i.e. steak fries (chips), French fries, curly fries, etc.
13. Cultivation of potatoes is thought to have started around the same time as the start of the Common Era, around 2000 years ago in Peru and Bolivia.  It gradually spread from there throughout South America. These early forms of the plant were fairly bitter and tuber-like.
14. The word “potato” comes from the Haitian word “batata”, which was their name for a sweet potato.  This later came to Spanish as “patata” and eventually into English as “potato”.
15. The slang term for potato, “spud”, comes from the spade-like tool that is used to harvest the potatoes.
16. When the potato was first introduced to Ireland and Scotland, it was met with quite a bit of resistance from Protestants there, due to the fact that the potato wasn’t mention anywhere in the Bible; thus, it wasn’t clear whether it was acceptable to eat, so they refused to plant them at first.  The Catholics, on the other hand, chose to sprinkle them with holy water before planting, thus making them acceptable to plant and eat.
17. The French term “frite”, for fries, indicates deep frying, whereas, in English, “fried” could mean deep frying, sautéing, or pan-frying.  Probably for this reason, “French fried”, has come to mean “deep-fried” in English, regardless of what is being fried
18. Between the 1850s and 1930s, French fries were known more illustratively as “French fried potatoes” in America.  Around the 1930s, everybody dropped the “potatoes” on the end and just called them French fries
19. The world's largest french fry feed is held every year in Grand Forks, during Potato Bowl USA. A new record was set on September 10, 2015, when 5,220 pounds of french fries were served.
20. July 13th is National French Fry day.