Burger Questions Answered For National Burger Day

The hamburger has been a staple for fast food restaurants and grilling out for a century. Here are all the answers to your beefy questions.

Why do we call it a hamburger when it’s actually beef?
There are conflicting claims as to where the hamburger originated. Some say it was Louis Lassen of Connecticut, USA, 1900. Many believe it was invented in Hamburg, Germany. Which makes a lot of sense on the title front. Although some Americans claim it was from Hamburg, NEW YORK. We can also thank Germany for rival delicious pressed-meat-shape the frankfurter.

How many burgers do McDonalds sell?
The 'informal eating out' market is worth $1 trillion a year globally. Fast food accounts for 75 per cent of that, and McDonald's owns around 11 per cent of that. Which is a lot of burgers – they say they sell 75 hamburgers every second, and have sold around 300 billion in total. Burger King is the number three fast food chain in the world (the second is Subway).

What are all these farting cows doing to the ozone layer?
Interestingly, bovine flatulence isn't the main problem. 6.5 pounds of greenhouse gases are released to produce one quarter-pounder burger. Just in America, the 500 million tons of manure created every year by cows releases nitrus oxide, a gas that has 300 times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide.

What happened to Morgan Spurlock?
Unsurprisingly, he got fat, and reported several health problems after eating only McDonalds meals every day for a month for Super Size Me, putting on around 11 kg - which took fourteen months to lose. Last year he made the One Direction movie.

What’s the world’s most expensive burger?
Forget your Wagyu or Kobe beef, last year a Dutch scientist made meat from stem cells. The lab grown burger cost €250,000 (£207,000).

What’s the world's biggest burger?
According to the Guinness World Records, the largest hamburger weighed 913.54 kg (2,014 lb) and was prepared by Black Bear Casino Resort, Minnesota, USA, in 2012. The hamburger was topped with 23.81 kg (52.5 lb) of tomatoes, 22.68 kg (50 lb) of lettuce, 27.22 kg (60 lb) of onion, 8.62 kg (19 lb) of pickles, 18.14 kg (40 lb) of cheese and 7.48 kg (16.5 lb) of bacon.

Why do burgers taste so good?
Of course that's subjective, but a lot of people Google this question. It's probably because of the high levels of salt, sugar and fat. And that's also probably why so many wacky burger concoctions have been created, including doughnut burgers and pizza burgers.

What happened to the Hamburgler?
Though never caught, like so many other child stars it’s assumed he went off the rails when Maccy Ds dropped him from their ads. Time magazine voted Burger King’s King the creepiest ever product mascot, three places above the Hamburgler.

Questions and answers from The Independent.