Posted in Life & Happiness

One Hundred Eggs

How many eggs can you eat in one sitting? Three? Half a dozen? No matter how big or hungry you may be, eating a hundred eggs is just unthinkable. Whether you fry it, boil it, scramble it or straight out drink it, “one hundred’ is simply too much. Too difficult to imagine how much one hundred eggs would be? A hundred eggs weigh about 4~5kg. Considering a steak is usually 200~400g, this is an incredible amount. The nutritional values cannot be ignored either. A hundred eggs contain about 32350kJ of energy (7750 calories), 56g of carbohydrates, 530g of fat and 630g of protein. It is an astonishing amount of food. How could anyone eat such a massive amount in one sitting?

Surprisingly, even a petite, slim girl can eat a hundred eggs. The secret lies in how the eggs are cooked. The best thing about eggs is that they can be cooked in various ways, such as fried eggs, poached eggs, scrambled eggs and boiled eggs. The following is a fascinating way of cooking eggs to maximise the amount of eggs you can eat in one sitting. The secret method is noodles.

This is not the same as standard “egg noodles” that merely contain eggs. This is noodles only made of eggs. As strange as it sounds, once you learn the recipe and some simple scientific facts, it all becomes very clear.

Firstly, take a hundred eggs, crack them into a very large bowl and whisk thoroughly. This may be difficult due to the sheer amount of eggs as mentioned above. Next, take a cupful of the whisked eggs and strain it through a sieve straight into boiling water. The egg instantly solidifies into thin, long noodle-shapes. The reason you strain it is to make the texture smoother. Repeat this method until all of the eggs are used up and then cook the noodles in whatever way you fancy.

How does turning eggs into noodles let you eat more of it? The reason being, two-thirds of an egg is just water. Most lifeforms contain a large proportion of water. For example, about two-thirds of your weight is water too. By dripping the whisked egg in the boiling water, the water disperses out while the proteins and fat solidify to form noodles. Ergo, the nutritional components of the eggs are preserved but the filling portion is thrown away. Any other way of cooking eggs causes the water to be trapped in the final product.

Of course, this is an extremely wasteful way of eating eggs, but it can be of some benefit for a person seeking a high-protein diet to bulk their muscles.

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Posted in Science & Nature

Mentos Coke Experiment

There is an extremely entertaining experiment that can be done with two simple ingredients found in the local supermarket: Mentos mints and Diet Coke (it is more effective than original Coke). The experiment procedure is as following:

After opening the bottle, quickly drop the Mentos in to the Diet Coke. Run.

As soon as the Mentos falls in, the Coke spurts foam explosively, which shoots up to great heights. Depending on the temperature of the Coke (the warmer the better) and the number of Mentos mints (it is more effective to thread them and drop them all at once), the pillar of foam can rise to a few metres.

This fascinating phenomenon is not caused purely by a chemical reaction, but has more to do with physics. Mentos mints are coated with menthol, which has numerous microscopic dents. When it enters the Coke, the dissolved carbon dioxide forms bubbles that collect in these pits. As they collect, the bubbles expand until the pressure builds past a certain level, causing an explosion. 

The most important point is that if this experiment is not performed outside, one could end up cleaning a sticky room for days.

Posted in Science & Nature

Man Versus Ant

Human:
A mammal that ranges in size from about 1 to 2 metres.
Weighs between 30kg and 100kg. Females are pregnant for 9 months. 
Omnivorous diet. Population estimated around 7 billion.

Ant:
An insect that ranges in size from about 0.01 to 3 centimetres.
Weighs between 0.001mg and 1g. Can produce eggs endlessly given there is an ample sperm reservoir.
Omnivorous diet. Population estimated around 1 quintillion (1 billion times 1 billion).

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)