Some Snapple facts are pretty mind-blowing—so mind-blowing, in fact, that they don’t seem true
12 Snapple “Facts” That Are Actually False
Updated on Apr. 23, 2025
Snapple facts?
When you reach for a delicious, refreshing Snapple, the best part—aside from quenching your thirst—is reading the fun Snapple facts listed under each and every cap. But who fact-checks the Snapple facts? Anyone?
Reader’s Digest is here to save the day. As it turns out, some of the Snapple facts just aren’t true. Read on, and amaze your friends with your Snapple knowledge. Here are 12 times Snapple facts weren’t very factual.
Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more fun facts, cleaning, travel, tech and humor all week long.
Snapple Fact #31
Eating spiders? This is one of the Snapple facts that probably grossed you out when you read it. Good news: It’s false. Spiders are pretty scared of people and their movements, including breathing, so the likelihood that they would go near the open mouth of a sleeping human is slim to none. Scientists say it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll even swallow one spider in your lifetime, so you can rest easy.
Snapple Fact #830
An entire dream in a few seconds? It sounds incredible, but this weird fact doesn’t have concrete evidence to back it up. Sleep researchers struggle to quantify the length of dreams, because recollections upon awakening are so subjective. It’s also hard to tell exactly when people are dreaming.
Scientists can measure how long we stay in a rapid eye movement (REM) sleep state, which is generally from 10 minutes to an hour. But not all dreams occur during a REM cycle, and we have multiple REMs per night. According to the Sleep Foundation, the best estimate for the total amount of time dreaming per night is about two hours.
Snapple Fact #70
Nope. Caller ID is legal in California and every other state, so you won’t be getting away with making prank calls anytime soon. This Snapple fact is likely a holdover from the early days of caller ID services, when California, citing privacy concerns, was the last U.S. state to roll it out. That happened in 1996, so this Snapple fact is about 30 years out of date.
Snapple Fact #868
Thomas Jefferson invented a lot of things, including a revolving wooden clothes horse that he kept in his closet at Monticello (which may be why he gets saddled with the coat hanger claim), but he did not create the modern coat hanger.
That honor goes to Albert J. Parkhouse, an employee of Timberlake Wire & Novelty Company. Parkhouse and his co-workers didn’t have enough hooks to hang their coats on, so he grabbed some wire and started twisting. Because the hanger was created at work, the company applied for and received a patent for the clothes hanger in 1906.
Snapple Fact #179
This Snapple fact isn’t a fact, either. While the Statue of Liberty was a marvel of innovation, it was not the first lighthouse to use electricity. That distinction belongs to the South Foreland lighthouse, which protects the Straits of Dover in Kent, England.
The South Foreland lighthouse was not designed for electricity, but in 1858 it became the first lighthouse in the world to display an electric lamp. The Souter lighthouse, also in England, was one of the first in the world to be designed specifically to use electricity, in 1871.
Snapple Fact #18
This fact isn’t completely wrong, but it is misleading. There are hundreds of known species of true jellyfish, and even more of their jelly-adjacent relatives. Not all of them are exactly 95% water.
In fact, researchers studying the peach blossom jellyfish, Craspedacusta sowerbii, found that the freshwater jelly’s water content ranged from 96.7% to 99.9% percent water! So while 95% is a pretty good average, if you’re going for precision, this Snapple fact doesn’t quite cut it.
Snapple Fact #89
If someone walked 18,000 steps in a day, they would travel 7.5 miles. That’s a lot of walking. It’s hard to know exactly how this number was quantified (there’s not a lot of room on a Snapple cap!), but the Mayo Clinic says that the average U.S. adult walks about 3,000 to 4,000 steps every day. That’s closer to 2 miles, which sounds much less exhausting.
Snapple Fact #840
While honey is a miracle of nature, with numerous health benefits and, yes, a very long shelf life, honey isn’t alone in the longevity department. How long has that jug of vinegar been in your pantry? How about soy sauce? Salt is another food that almost never spoils, and white rice will last 30 years if stored properly, according to the Utah State University extension. We rank this Snapple fact as false.
Snapple Fact #878
Most of the time, male fireflies are the ones you see dancing through the air with their bums flashing. They are looking for female fireflies, who often wait in the tall grass while the males make their move. But that doesn’t mean that all female fireflies are flightless.
Whether or not a female lightning bug can fly depends on the species, of which there are approximately 2,400. Some female fireflies can fly but don’t do it often, some can fly just fine and some can’t fly at all.
Snapple Fact #50
What? A mosquito doesn’t have any teeth at all! Instead, it has a proboscis—a system of long, piercing tubes that it uses to suck blood from its victims. So even though we say we have a “bite” when a mosquito gives us an itchy, annoying welt, it is not using teeth to do it.
Snapple Fact #85
If you look at the Mona Lisa today, the subject doesn’t appear to have eyebrows (or eyelashes). But depending on the art historian or scientist you ask, the 500-year-old Mona Lisa definitely had eyebrows, at least at one time. At least that’s the theory.
An engineer from Paris made a splash by theorizing that the Mona Lisa was originally painted with eyebrows, but that time or restoration efforts had caused them to fade. The theory remains controversial, so we rate this Snapple fact as mixed.
Snapple Fact #36
The final Snapple fact check is a claim about animals that many have debunked over the years, including an acoustic engineer and the TV show Mythbusters. Their experiments found that a quack does indeed echo; it’s just hard to hear because the echo gets absorbed by the original quack.
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We’ve gone the extra step and had Christine Coppa, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience, including serving as a staff research editor at Philadelphia magazine and Essence, verify that all Snapple facts are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Britannica: “Do We Really Swallow Spiders in Our Sleep?”
- CBS News: “Mona Lisa Once Had Eyebrows, Says Expert”
- Firefly.org: “Types of Fireflies”
- Guardian: “Acoustics Professor Proves Ducks Do Echo”
- Journal of Plankton Research: “Chemical Composition and Biomass Parameters of a Population of Craspedacusta sowerbii”
- L.A. Times: “Caller ID Service Sparks Battle Over Privacy”
- Monticello: “Clothes Horse”
- Sleep Foundation: “How Long Do Dreams Last?”
- Utah State University: “Storing White Rice”
