Food
How much do you need to chew your food?
British dentist John H. Farrell spent much of his career studying the relationship between chewing and digestion. This involved repeated experiments in which he put bits of food in small, cotton-mesh bags, had subjects chew the food (or not), and then swallow it. The next step was more unpleasant:The years he spent doing this convinced him that "very little chewing is required for maximum digestion."
More info: "The effect on digestibility of methods commonly used to increase the tenderness of lean meat"
Bedford Times-Mail - Apr 17, 1964
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 21, 2022 -
Comments (3)
Category: Food, Experiments, Stomach, Teeth
Hot Meal Vending Machines
In 1968 (perhaps even earlier), an inventor had the notion of serving hot meals from a vending machine.
Lo and behold, today his dream is a reality. Would you sample such fare?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 07, 2022 -
Comments (3)
Category: Food, Technology, 1960s, Asia
Follies of the Madmen #545
Sleepwear for hungry insomniacs.Several others in this series here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 28, 2022 -
Comments (6)
Category: Fashion, Food, Sleep and Dreams, Advertising, Twentieth Century
Stealing a Dinner
Posted By: Paul - Sat Oct 15, 2022 -
Comments (2)
Category: Death, Food, Cats, Dogs, 1900s, Weapons
Cheese Problems Solved
If you've got cheese problems, this is the book you need.More info: Science Direct
Posted By: Alex - Wed Oct 12, 2022 -
Comments (5)
Category: Food, Books
Follies of the Madmen #543
Wonder Bread gets you sex.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 11, 2022 -
Comments (3)
Category: Food, Advertising, Twentieth Century, Sex
The Palatibility of Tadpoles
In 1970, biologist Richard Wassersug conducted a study to determine what different kinds of tadpoles taste like. More specifically, whether some taste worse than others. He convinced 11 grad students to be his tadpole tasters.The most distasteful tadpole was Bufo marinus, while the most palatable ones were Smilisca sordida and Colostethus nubicola.
This confirmed his hypothesis that the most visible tadpoles were the least palatable. Their bad taste deterred predators from eating them, whereas the better tasting tadpoles relied on concealment to avoid being eaten.
Thirty years later, Wassersug was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for this research.
More info: "On the Comparative Palatibility of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles from Costa Rica"
Richard Wassersug poses with a frog
image source: University of Chicago
Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 29, 2022 -
Comments (2)
Category: Food, Science, Experiments
Gravy Wrestling
The BBC reports that, after a two-year absence due to Covid, the World Gravy Wrestling Championship has returned.More info: World Gravy Wrestling
Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 15, 2022 -
Comments (0)
Category: Food, Sports
Miss Cranberry 1972
Source
Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 02, 2022 -
Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Food, Regionalism, 1970s
Meat Homogenate
For a mere $1,064 one can buy four cans of something called "meat homogenate" from the U.S. government's National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The stuff is edible. The NIST website describes it as "a mixture of pork and chicken products blended together in a commercial process." However, it's not actually supposed to be eaten. It's sold as "standard reference material." All the nutrients in it (fatty acids, cholesterol, calories, vitamins, etc.) have been carefully measured. So companies can buy it and use it to calibrate their own equipment used to measure the nutrients in the food they sell. The high cost of the meat homogenate reflects the work done to measure the nutrients. Not the food itself.
However, I think the NIST should sell 'meat homogenate' labels as a gag gift, and people could put them on their own cans. I wouldn't mind having a few cans of meat homogenate in the pantry to impress guests.
The NIST also sells three jars of peanut butter for $1,069.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Aug 22, 2022 -
Comments (5)
Category: Food, Nutrition, Government
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |