Beer and chocolate: the facts about Belgium you do not know

Certainly, such an impressive country as Belgium is just a very curious place to visit. There are numerous interesting facts about the history and culture of Belgium and some of them are pretty well-known. Still, there are enough of things you might have never heard about and this is high time to explore them. Of course, this article will help you learn more about Belgium.

Belgium and its chocolate

Needless to say, Belgium is extremely famous for its chocolate production. You will hardly find a person who has never heard about the importance of Belgium when it comes to the chocolate industry. Yet, you might not be aware of some specific facts about Belgium when it comes to chocolate.

For instance, how large is the production of chocolate in Belgium? The exact numbers are 220 000 tons of this amazing product on an annual basis! This is an immense amount of chocolate indeed.

You have probably already heard that the world’s record for the greatest amount of chocolate sold is not just in Belgium, but it is specifically in the Zaventem airport located in Brussels. You can definitely imagine all of the tourists and other visitors shopping for chocolates in all of the souvenir shops located on the premises of the airport. Can you actually imagine how much of the chocolate is sold there in reality?

Well, the approximate number is 1.6 kilogramme every minute!

Belgium and beer

There is no need to explain how significant is the production of beer for Belgium and the entire world where this country is considered to be one of the leaders of beer manufacturing. You have certainly read a lot of articles mentioning the culture of beer drinking and the scale of its production and serving in this country. Such information is also highlighted in many articles available on our website. Still, there is one curious fact about Belgium and its beer culture which you might have never heard about.

Well, you have probably heard about people of different countries having wine or beer instead of water for the sake of avoiding a possibility of intoxication with particular microorganisms. Fermentation which leads to the development of alcohol is the process which is detriments for some pathogenic bacteria, for example, for salmonella. This tradition was particularly popular during the Medieval times in western Europe which had a particularly low level of hygiene. Belgium was a part of that world as well.

Still, you might have never heard about the fact the tradition of having beer just as a normal beverage rather than an alcoholic drink was extremely popular in Belgium not so long ago. Even though people did not drink beer instead of normal water anymore, they could indulge themselves with particular light types of beer during the working day and it was regarded as something absolutely normal.

Furthermore, until the 1970s, so called “table beer” was drunk by children and it was even served in school cafeterias just like tea, lemonade or water. This is indeed an amazing fact and it is going to be even more interesting, since 2001 the club of the Flemish beer lovers has started applying their proposals to the government to allow table beer to come back to schools and to be served to children again.

According this community, table beer is a way healthier than all of the sugary beverages including fruit juices which are one of the significant culprits for a range of modern diseases affecting children. Actually, table beer is a very light beverage and it has less than 1,5% of alcohol and thirty schools around Belgium have accepted this proposal.