22nd April: National Jelly Bean Day

It's National Jelly Bean day - so here are ten sweet facts about jelly beans.

1. No-one is quite sure what the origin of jelly beans was, but they're generally thought to derive from Turkish Delight.
2. They date back at least to the US Civil War, when people sent them to the soldiers. The first advertisement for them was in 1905, in the Chicago Daily News. The jelly beans were on sale for nine cents per pound. Each colour of jelly bean used to be sold separately.
3. It takes 7 to 21 days to make a jelly bean.
4. There are 130 calories and 37 grams of sugar in one serving of jelly beans which equals about 35 jelly beans.
5. The original eight flavours were Very Cherry, Root Beer, Cream Soda, Tangerine, Green Apple, Lemon, Liquorice and Grape. Most flavours are fruit or spice flavours, although you can get novelty flavours like liquorice and Popcorn. You can even get earwax, dirt, pepper, and vomit flavours in a range based on the Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans from the Harry Potter books. Very Cherry is the most popular.
6. Jelly beans have come to be associated with Easter, possibly because they look like little Eggs. In the U.S, 16 billion jelly beans are made just for Easter. This is enough to circle the Earth more than 3 times if they were laid end to end.
7. One famous jelly bean fan was Ronald Reagan. He developed a taste for them as Governor of California, when he ate them while giving up smoking. When he became President, a new flavour, Blueberry, was created in his honour. 7,000 pounds of jelly beans were distributed during his inauguration in 1981.
8. They’re gluten free, Peanut free, dairy free, fat free and kosher.
9. Jelly beans have been to space - aboard the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1983.
10. In 2011, Kina Grannis made an animated film using jelly beans. 288,000 Jelly Belly beans of 47 different flavours were used to make the film, In Your Arms.