Over the past many months, I've been sifting through every source imaginable on kissing. I've read papers on anthropology and dentistry, spoken to neuroscientists and classicists, and searched through many pop culture references as well. It's been fascinating and fun, but one peculiar 'trivia fact' I kept coming across bothered me:

'Kissing for one minute burns 26 calories.'

Preposterous of course, but I couldn't help wonder why '26' was popping up everywhere. It seemed so random. Obviously this is not in the book, but I was increasingly curious as to how and where the rumor got started.

Today I finally solved the mystery: