Halloween Countdown: Did You Know...? (Pumpkin Edition)

Mom and I went to the grocery store last night to get more Rice Krispies and I couldn't help but notice the overflowing bins of pumpkins outside. Hundreds of them in all shapes of sizes!

I was ready to start selecting the perfect one for this year's Jack-O-Lantern but my mom said it was too early—plus, it's kind of tradition that we all go out as a family. So I closed my eyes and walked by them quickly...and dreamed about them ALL. NIGHT.

Some really strange things happened in my dream. Enough that when I woke up (way before going to school), I had to do some research to sort through fact and fiction. I learned some cool things, and I didn't want to let all that morning knowledge <heh> go to waste.

So, for today's Halloween Countdown post I present you with...

10 Super Cool Things About Pumpkins

1. Pumpkins are fruits. Not vegetables. (What gives it away? The seeds! Mmmmm...roasted pumpkin seeds...)
2. Speaking of seeds, the average pumpkin contains about a cup of them. Next to popcorn, roasted pumpkin seeds are my favourite movie-watching snack. 
3. There is such a thing as a blue pumpkin. I had to look it up because there was one in my dream. Pumpkins can also be red, green, yellow, white, multi-coloured, and of course, orange. 
4. We are definitely having Grandma's special pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, but did you know that pumpkin pie was not served at the first Thanksgiving meals? Apparently it was more of a custard. Thank goodness it's pie these days. 
5. My family carves four pumpkins a year (and sometimes Dad and I do an extra one), but in the early days, Jack-O-Lanterns were actually carved from TURNIPS or even POTATOES. No thanks—I'm a pumpkin kid. How about you?
6. Pumpkin is actually pretty good for you. One cup has under calories and about two grams of protein, plus a lot of important vitamins. Grandma says it's the sugar that's added to things like pie, cookies, cheesecake, and muffins that makes it unhealthy—but that's the same for almost all baking, right? 
7. The largest pumpkin ever grown weighed 1,810 pounds. Can you IMAGINE the amount of seeds? Or how long it would take to carve a spooktacular Jack-O-Lantern face? <grin> I wish! I think the heaviest pumpkin Dad ever brought home was about 25 pounds...
8. Did you know that 90% of the pumpkin is water? 
9. People used to think that pumpkins had the ability to remove freckles and cure snake bites. I get why you'd try it for a snake bite, but who would want to remove freckles? My friend Sophie has them and they're cute! 
10. Pumpkins are grown across all continents except one—Antarctica. No surprise there! 

How many of those facts did YOU know?

Gotta jet! It's Reading Week and we have an author coming in to read to our class. I wonder if he or she will read from the Superman Duffy books? Let me know if any of your guest readers do!

Oh, and share a pumpkin fact below if you want to WIN a copy of Beneath the SOIL! See you tomorrow!

~ Chase Superman Duffy