Subway Restaurant Facts

There are currently 42,859 Subway restaurants in 108 countries around the world. Subway has overtaken McDonald’s in number of locations. Subway has plans to have 50,000 restaurants around the world by 2018, which means the company will need to open more than six restaurants a day, every day, for the next four years. Subway has opened, on average, more than two restaurants per day since 1965.

Holiday Travel Tip

While traveling, carry-on bags, purses, and wallets can be easily lost or stolen. This is an easy hack to prevent potential headaches, especially for international travel. Scan driver's license, passport, traveler's checks, credit card number, and card help line phone numbers, or any other important information, then e-mail the information to yourself. Now you can go to any computer in the world and get a copy of your documents and information.

Free Holiday Gingerbread House

Happy Friday

Happiness does not make us grateful, being grateful makes us happy.

I am grateful to be able to share with you a Happy Friday!

Twelve Turkey Facts

Here are a few tidbits to digest along with your turkey leftovers. Turkeys have been roaming North and South America for over 10-million years.

Over short flights, a wild turkey can top out at about 55 miles per hour (89 km/h). Domestic turkeys cannot fly because they are too heavy.

The largest turkey on record weighed 86 pounds.

Turkeys (and many birds) ingest small stones that go into a part of their stomachs called the gizzard, which helps the turkey break down food. This process is necessary because turkeys, like all birds, don't have teeth.

Turkeys have two stomachs: the glandular stomach that softens the food with gastric juices and the gizzard that grinds it up for the intestines or the first stomach, if needed.

The feces of male turkeys are J-shaped, and also straighter and larger than a female's, which look more spiral shaped.

There is a festival honoring turkeys, the Eldon, Missouri Turkey Festival which is held each October. It includes a turkey egg toss, turkey calling seminars and a 5-K turkey trot.

Wild turkeys prefer to sleep in trees, because their eyesight is so poor.

The tops of male turkeys are not only colorful, but highly variable. Males normally have almost no feathers on their heads, but when it comes time to breed, the colors can change between red, white, and blue.

Male turkeys gobble, female turkeys do not gobble, they make a clicking noise.

Mature turkeys have about 3,500 feathers at maturity.

The red bumps on a turkey's head are called caruncles.

Laughing Exercise

Laughing 100 times is equivalent to 15 minutes of exercise on a stationary bicycle.

Snurfing and Snowboards

Sherman Poppen from Muskegon, Michigan took two 36-inch skis that had a little leather strap over the top of them that kids could slide their shoes into. He added a couple of cross pieces across them about five of six inches apart. The cross pieces were actually molding so you could put your feet up against it. His wife called it the 'snurfer'.

He kept improving the design, patented it as a "surf-type snow ski," and sold it to Brunswick. By 1970, almost a million of the boards had been sold.

Jake Burton Carpenter had a competing product he called the 'Burton Board'. Carpenter's Burton Snowboards would go on to become one of the largest snowboard brands in the world.

Snowboarders might be riding "snurfboards" today, if Poppen hadn't been so possessive of his trademark. When he got started and Burton was calling his board Snurfboards, and his was a Snurfer. He did not like his name being used so he hired an attorney to protect his trademark. The sport became snowboarding because Carpenter could not use the word Snurfer or Snurf.

More Egg Facts

Eggs contain very little saturated fat (1.5 grams per large egg) and no trans fat. A medium egg contains about 63 calories and a large about 74 calories.

The nutrients in eggs can play a role in weight management, muscle strength, healthy pregnancy, brain function, eye health, and more.

Egg yolks are a great source of choline, an essential nutrient. Two eggs provide about 250 milligrams of choline. Choline also aids the brain function by maintaining the structure of brain cell membranes, and is a key component of the neuro-transmitter that helps relay messages from the brain through nerves to the muscles.

Lutein and zeaxanthin, two antioxidants found in egg yolks, help prevent macular degeneration, a leading cause of age-related blindness and may even reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Eggs have the highest nutritional quality protein of all food sources. Protein is a source of energy, but its main role in the body is growth and repair. It helps in the formation of muscles, hair, nails, skin and organs, such as the heart, kidneys and liver.

Vitamins and minerals in eggs include:
Biotin - helps cell metabolism and the utilization of fats, proteins and carbohydrates
Calcium - for building and maintain bones and teeth
Cephalin - a phosphorus-containing lipid found in tissues
Folate - for growth
Iodine - to ensure proper function of the thyroid gland
Iron - to produce hemoglobin, which carries oxygen around our bodies maintenance of healthy cells
Lecithin - contains acetylcholine which has been proven to help brain function
Pantothenic acid (Vitamin B5 ) - releases energy from our food for our body to use
Phosphorous - helps build strong bones and teeth
Selenium - antioxidant that protects our body and immune system
Thiamine - to turn carbohydrates into energy our body can use
Vitamin A (retinal) - for growth and eye health
Vitamin B12 (riboflavin) - for brain and nervous system functions and blood formation
Vitamin D - important in bone health.
Vitamin E - antioxidant to protect our bodies against disease
Zinc - helps in growth, wound healing, blood formation and maintenance of tissues.

Eliminating eggs from your diet because you are concerned about cholesterol is of no value and you lose the dietary benefits. Harvard Medical School and Mayo clinic agree that even though yolks contain cholesterol, very little of it actually makes it into your bloodstream, where it matters.

Pig Squeals

Experts have determined that the average pig squeals at a level of 100-115 decibels. A jet’s engine only reaches about 112 decibels at takeoff. Bacon does not squeal, it sizzles.