Your Daily Facts about Oysters
Americans eat about 50 million pounds of oysters each year.
In the 18th and 19th Centuries oysters were thought of as a working class meal.
There are more than 400 different types of oysters in the world.
The lifespan of an oyster can be up to twenty years.
Oysters siphoning up to 25 gallons of water a day through their system.
Oysters can way up to 1/2 pound.
Oysters like a fish use both gills and mantle for breathing.
It was said the President Abraham Lincoln held parties where the only food served were oysters.
An oyster produces a pearl when grains of sand or other irritant becomes trapped inside the shell. This process will take between 6 to 7 years.
Pearl colors are known to come in shades of white, yellow, pink and even black.
In the wild only 1 out of 10,000 oysters will produce a pearl.
The edible variety is a different breed than the pearl oysters.
Archeologists suggest oysters have been eaten all the way back to the prehistoric times.
The first to raise oysters in farms were the Chinese.
During spawning season the female oysters can release up to 1 million eggs.
Oysters are born first as males, then transform into egg producing females, and then switch back to male.
Oysters have more zinc per serving than any other food.
In the Guinness Book of World Records 288 oysters were eaten in one minutes thirty-three seconds by Tommy “Muskrat” Greene.
How to Shuck An Oyster Video