Biking & Pickles

 

It turns out that loss of electrolytes is NOT the likely cause of cramps.  What is? Some form of exhaustion.

 

The scientific experiments into cramping are interesting, but they’re limited. At Brigham Young University, male athletes pedaled with one leg on recumbent exercise bikes until they lost three percent of their body weight. Then, a gizmo was affixed to their toe, and electrical stimulation applied to their tibial muscle, which caused the toe to cramp.

 

Long story short — when they drank pickle juice, the cramps stopped in about

35 seconds. Those that drank ionized water continued to cramp.

 

Historical Facts

 

• Pickles are mentioned in the Bible and can be found in the works of Shakespeare.

   Cleopatra ate pickles because she believed they were one of the things that helped her stay beautiful.

 

• Explorers like Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci used pickles to help prevent  scurvy amongst the crews of                  their ships. 

 

• Napoleon offered a huge financial prize to anyone who could find the best way to used  pickling to preserve food for his                  troops.

 

• H.J. Heinz used pins shaped like pickles to draw customers to his booth at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. 

 

• The U.S. government commandeered 40% of all pickles made in the U.S. during WWII so that they could be used in                        rations for the soldiers.

 

Quirky Facts

 

• Kool-aid pickles are made by soaking dill pickles in strong kool-aid and are

    very popular in parts of Mississippi.

 

• A town in Michigan that claims to be the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World holds an  annual pickle parade led

   by the Grand Dillmeister.

 

• You can hear the crunch of a good pickle at 10 paces.

 

• In early times, people believed that pickles were essential to good health and helped to maintain the right balance

   of acid in the body.

 

Pickles Around the World

 

• Americans love dill pickles twice as much as their sweet counterparts and an average American eats more than

  8 pounds of pickles a year.

 

• In Fiji, pickles are part of the courting process as pickle pits provide a valuable source of 

   food in the event of a storm.  Men use their pickle pits to prove they have the means to provide for a wife. 

 

• In America and Canada, people prefer pickles with bumps and warts to those that are made from wartless                              cucumbers.Although most people consider pickles a vegetable

  because they are made from cucumbers, the U.S. Supreme Court has rules that they are technically a fruit, similar to tomatoes.

 

• In the U.S., pickles are made in 30 of the 50 states with Michigan and North Carolina  making the most pickles