A Conversation for Join the Q: Mathematical Vegetables

Pity to eat them

Post 1

minorvogonpoet

Yes, they're beautifulsmiley - smiley. It seems a pity to cook and eat them.

Am I right in thinking the second law of thermodynamics is exemplified in reducing, say, a beautiful vegetable to food?.


Pity to eat them

Post 2

cactuscafe

The second law of thermodynamics? this sounds very mysterious to me, mvp.

Almost as mysterious as this remarkable vegetable itself! Great photos! Hungry now.

Incredible design, Romanesco broccoli, I'm going to try to find one of these marvels. Imagine eating Fibonacci spirals!

After consuming, I might become a mathematician, and even understand the second law of thermodynamics. smiley - rofl


Pity to eat them

Post 3

minorvogonpoet

It's just me trying to sound intelligent and doubtless failing. smiley - doh


Pity to eat them

Post 4

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

" It seems a pity to cook and eat them" [Minorvogonpoet]

The late president George H W Bush hated eating broccoli. If you hear angelic applause, he's probably the one doing it. smiley - winkeye


Pity to eat them

Post 5

Caiman raptor elk - Inside big box, thinking.

If you are in need of some chaos after dissecting the fractals under the microscope for your math studies, you could always turn it into a primal soup.

Add some zucchini, potato, stock and after cooking and putting it through the blender, serve with some crispy bacon on top.

(If you want to save time you could also just eat crispy bacon while staring through the microscope)


Pity to eat them

Post 6

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

Broccoli is one of the "superfoods" that get a lot of attention nowadays. Blueberries, green tea, and Chia seeds are among the others. Chia is a type of sage that grows in Mexico. I plan to plant some of the seeds this spring and see how much of as corp I get. I also have some native sage plants which have edible seeds.

I prefer to use simple ingredients and add herbs and spices to enhance their flavor. I don't like nutrition "experts" who insist that you can't be properly nourished unless you eat exotic plants that few people have even heard of.

These "experts" are crazy, in my opinion. smiley - sadface


Pity to eat them

Post 7

Caiman raptor elk - Inside big box, thinking.

Our ancestors survived without food experts. It also depends on what native foods are available. Most of ours are boring, so variation is everything. I use exotic stuff, but mostly for the taste, not because it is fashionable.


Pity to eat them

Post 8

SashaQ - happysad

I am a mathematician smiley - geek but the Second Law of Thermodynamics isn't something I studied particularly... (I did once do a calculation using Newton's Law of Cooling to indicate that tea stays hotter if you put the milk in first, though!). The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that heat can never be transferred from a cooler thing to a hotter thing without extra work being done?

Romanesco Broccoli would make excellent primal soup! smiley - laugh

These days I wonder if our ancestors did survive without food experts (food experts would say not) but anyway, eating food is considerably more likely to help us survive than not eating food...

I enjoyed eating Fibonacci Spirals - the texture was excellent! smiley - magic


Pity to eat them

Post 9

Caiman raptor elk - Inside big box, thinking.

Old day food experts were the ones that could say which mushroom is edible, lethal or enjoyable.

As an engineer, I am aware of the laws of thermodynamics. We are lucky to have them . I love entropy, as it would be a shame if all the oxygen molecules decided to hide under the table while you're not looking. On the other hand, we shouldn't forget to thank good old gravity, or we would have lost the atmosphere ages ago. (you can have too much entropy then.)


Pity to eat them

Post 10

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

" eating food is considerably more likely to help us survive than not eating food.." [SashaQ]

That's true for the vast majority of us, though there's a guy in India who claims not to have eaten for a very long time.
http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/has-this-man-gone-70-years-without-eating-update-chill-out-everyone-he-obviously-has-not.html

I like Michael Pollan's approach: "Eat Food. Mostly plants. Not too much." Anything that your great-grandmother would not have recognized as food should be avoided. Avoid the middle of the supermarket. Fruits and vegetables and meats and poultry are usually located around the edges, where they can replenished to keep them fresh. Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. Twinkies never go bad, so they are arguably not food. And don't buy food where you buy your gasoline.

"I think one of the terrible things today is that people have this deathly fear of food: fear of eggs, say, or fear of butter. Most doctors feel that you can have a little bit of everything." -- Julia Child.


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