Are Fortune Cookies and Astrology The Same?

Last Updated on November 24, 2022 by

Fortune cookies tell people about their fortune or tell them things about themselves when they break the cookie to reveal a thin paper. It’s usually a Chinese phrase that’s often translated to English. On the other hand, Astrology is the study of how the planets, the sun, and the universe affects earthly events. Now, the question many people seem to ask is “are fortune cookies and astrology the same?” Are they really the same? To find out, you’ll have to continue reading.

Similarities between fortune cookies and astrology

It won’t be odd if I see someone saying that astrology and fortune cookies are the same. Are people with such thoughts correct? Well, they are correct up to an extent and we’ll soon see why. Both fortune cookies and astrology help in telling people about their fortune but they do have their differences and we’ll be looking at them shortly.

Difference between fortune cookies and astrology

In order to fully understand their difference, we’ll be looking at key aspects like their origin and how they work.

Origin of fortune cookies

A fortune cookie is a cookie that’s made from flour, vanilla, sugar, and sesame seed oil. It has a sugary and crisp taste plus it also has a piece of paper that’s placed within the cookie which is known as the “fortune”.

Today, fortune cookies are often served as dessert when you visit a Chinese restaurant in Canada and the United States. Does that mean that fortune cookies have a Chinese background? The answer is no.

Fortune cookies date back to the 19th century when a cookie which is very much similar to the modern fortune cookies we use today was made in Kyoto, Japan. The Chinese started the fortune cookie business in America during World War II when over 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly placed in internment camps giving the Chinese manufacturers more opportunity to produce their cookies.

When compared to the Chinese fortune cookies, the Japanese version of the fortune cookies are a little larger, made from darker dough and their batter contains miso and sesame rather than butter and vanilla.

Origin of astrology

As I earlier stated, astrology is the study of the celestial bodies and how and how they influence our human lives and behaviour. Humans have always been fascinated by the sky but never carried out any detailed study up until 3000 BC when the civilization of Mesopotamia started studying the patterns formed by stars in the sky. They were able to identify five wandering stars of which the moon and the sun form the seven original planets.

Fast forward to the 18th century, the Babylonians within Mesopotamia were the first great astronomers – the minutes and seconds we use today as a measure of time was derived from their number system. They were the ones to first introduce the usefulness of the concept of the zodiac and they also divided the constellations in the sky into twelve segments or constellations which the Greeks later provided a term for it and they called it “animal circle”.

So far we can see that they originated at different timestamps in history. Now we’ll be looking at how they work.

How do fortune cookies work?

The Chinese or Japanese restaurants make these cookies and place a thin paper within the cookies. The customer who comes into the restaurant gets a tray of cookies to select a cookie from. The customer selects the cookie, breaks it to obtain the fortune. The fortune they obtain will carry a sentence or phrase. You can find texts like “you have a secret admirer”, “the love of your life will appear in front of you unexpectedly”, etc.

How does astrology work?

The way astrology works on the other hand is totally different from how fortune cookies work. In astrology, the astrologer will first have to determine your zodiac sign and that can be determined if you give them the date, time, and location of when you were born.

When the astrologer has that information about you, based on your zodiac sign, your astrology will be able to predict things that happened to you in the past, things you are currently facing, things you’ll likely experience in the future. There is something called “Horoscope” and by knowing your zodiac sign, you’ll be able to learn your daily horoscope.

Final thoughts

If you ask me, fortune cookies and astrology share similarities since they both predict a person’s fortune but astrology is a more accurate method to discover or find out things about yourself you didn’t know. So are they the same? The answer is no. Fortune cookies and astrology are not the same.