Thanksgiving Turkey Trivia Thursday 22nd November 2012 | Olga For those of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving today, here is some Thanksgiving turkey trivia for that moment when bellies are full and conversation wilts: Obesity problems in the U.S.? Whoever got that crazy idea from, when only more than 45 million turkeys are eaten on thanksgiving with an average of 4,575 calories per dinner? Silly people. Apparently, after thanksgiving many complain about the organic amino acid tryptophan that turkeys contain, responsible for drowsiness. I just call it your basic food comma. Lets not try and make fancy excuses for being a fatty. Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird, instead of the bald eagle. Now that would be a more humorous image- maybe America wouldn’t have had so many conflicts. Following on from that point, it was Thomas Jefferson who opposed him. So Benjamin then named the male turkey as ‘tom’ to spite him. Take that. Rumor has it that the outfit of our good old friend, Big Bird from Sesame Street, is made of turkey feathers. What a fraud. Scientists have found fossils suggesting that Turkeys roamed North America 10 million years ago. That’s 3,800,00 years more than human beings have been around. Don’t look so funny now, huh? Since 1947 during the Truman Administration, the National Turkey Foundation (yes, that really does exist) has presented two live turkeys and a read-to-eat turkey to the president. This is a longstanding Washington tradition, based on….oh wait, no one really knows why. Hm. When Columbus discovered North America, he thought that the turkey was a type of peacock. Oh dear, what mutant peacocks has he seen? - by Olga Formalnova