(CNN) — The time has come to wrap yourself in the warm, gooey embrace of cheese, settle into a heavenly array of toppings, and chomp down on some comforting crust. It’s National Pizza Day.
Now, that’s not to be confused with National Cheese Pizza Day (September 5), National Pepperoni Pizza Day (September 20), National Pizza Month (October) and National Sausage Pizza Day (October 11), but boy, does this nation love pizza.
Here are some absurd pizza facts to fuel your day of munching.
It might be addictive
The seemingly harmful pizza pie was ranked as the food most associated with addictive-like eating behaviors, according to a study. Its delicious combination of fat and carbohydrates, along with its texture, color and complimentary taste profile make it so appealing.
Artificial intelligence is coming for your slice
Is nothing sacred? The reach of artificial intelligence has expanded into pizza artistry. Researchers have figured out a way to teach an AI system how to construct a pizza by looking at a picture.
Pizza is just the beginning, though. If a computer can figure out how to properly layer the ingredients of a pizza, it may be able to better understand how to construct other foods, or eventually be able to layer clothes into an outfit, project leader Dimitrios Papadopoulos told CNN Business.
Pizza has been a tool of military intelligence
In the late ’60s, the US Army’s 113th Military Intelligence unit used the tastiest trick in their book — fake pizza deliveries — to spy on reporters and politicians, according to The New Yorker.
People love setting pizza records
Guinness World Records has recorded a seemingly endless list of pizza records. Here are just a few:
Longest pizza delivery: In 2006, Paul Fenech traveled 12,346.6 miles from Madrid to Wellington, New Zealand, to hand-deliver a pizza to Niko Apostolakis. CNN could not find any record of whether the pizza was freezing cold by the time it got there or whether Apostolakis actually ate that thing.
Most expensive pizza commercially available: Topped with white Stilton cheese, French foie gras and truffles, two types of caviar, and 24-karat gold leaves, all on a bed of black squid ink dough, this pizza will cost you $2,700. If you’re in the market for a pile of money in the shape of a pizza, this delicacy can be found at Industry Kitchen in New York.
Highest altitude pizza delivery on land: Good news! If you can make it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, you might be able to persuade Pizza Hut to deliver a victory meal to you. They’ve done it before, after all.
In 2016, the general manager of Pizza Hut Africa, Randall Blackford, and a group of employees, led by experienced guides, trekked to the summit of Kilimanjaro with a pepperoni pizza in tow.
The feat was undertaken to mark the opening of the first Pizza Hut in Tanzania and the 100th country in which the company had launched a restaurant.
