DAILY DIRT: There is no denying it … Americans love their pizza

American’s favorite kind of pizza should be easy to guess … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 931 of The Daily Dirt.

1. On the average, each person in the United States eats about 23 pounds of pizza per year.

That is roughly 46 slices, which to me sounds a bit low. Forty-six slices? Heck, that’s little more than a good weekend at the Eighingers.

Want some more pizza math?

As a nation, we consume about 3 billion pizzas annually.

About 350 slices of pizza are consumed each second in the U.S, meaning while you have read to this point  your fellow Americans have downed about 3,000 pieces of ‘za.

Roughly 93 percent of Americas order at least one pizza per month.

There is a National Museum of Pizza in Philadelphia, which houses the largest collection of pizza-related memorabilia in the world.

The popular “Hawaiian pizza,” which features pineapple, was actually developed in Canada who have the dish its tropical name.

The biggest pizza ever made was approximately 14,000 square feet. That huge pizza was made in Los Angeles and included 13,653 pounds of dough, 4,948 pounds of sweet marinara sauce, over 8,800 pounds of cheese and roughly 630,496 regular and cupped pepperoni. The pizza was fully assembled, topped and then baked in pieces on site at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Feb. 9 is World Pizza Day.

The world’s popular pizza is pepperoni. Sausage is No. 2.

Pizza is a $45.1 billion industry in the U.S.

Pizza delivery sales make up about 60 percent of the total pizza market.

Pizza Hut is the largest global pizza chain, featuring about 18,000 locations.

Saturday is the most popular night to eat pizza.

Pizza actually didn’t gain mass appeal in the U.S. until the 1940s. That’s when immigrating Italians brought their classic slices to America. And we have been grateful ever since.

2. More talk has surfaced this month over the eventual formation of what has been termed a “Super League” for 70 of the major college football programs split across seven 10-team regional alignments.

At least two media outlets have obtained copies of this blueprint that has been circulated among the nation’s elite conferences. The Midwest Division of this proposal would include:

• Ohio State
• Illinois
• Missouri
• Michigan
• Michigan State
• Cincinnati
• Louisville
• Purdue
• Northwestern
• Indiana

Obviously, this isn’t going to materialize overnight, but you can see where things are headed.

3. This week’s top celebrity birthdays include:

• Actor Kevin James, the longtime star of “King of Queens,” is 59 today. Yes, he wears a toupee.
• Former First Lady Melania Trump, whois celebrating her 54th birthday, also today. She was born in Slovenia, back when it was still called Yugoslavia.
• Singer Sheena Easton, who turns 64 on Saturday. She’s just a wee bit of a lass, standing 5-foot-1.
• Former late-night talk show host Jay Leno , who will be 74 on Sunday. Arguably the most prominent chin the history of show business.
• Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who turns 70, also on Sunday. I always felt the “Seinfeld” cast should have made a movie following the end of the celebrated sitcom.

Steve Thought O’ The Day — I think the highlight of Sheena Easton’s career came when she sang the theme song for the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only,” the 12th film in the 007 series back in 1981.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: C’mon Steve, no love for ‘Sugar Walls’? JRG

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. Final score from the Cotton Bowl: Missouri 14, tOSU 3.