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 Psychology & Medicine

Kuru

European explorers who visited the island of Papua New Guinea in the 1950’s noticed that the Fore tribe suffered from a strange disease. The patient would initially have headaches, joint pains and tremors. They then show signs of weakness and are unable to stand.  The shaking of limbs, a classic symptom of the disease, becomes progressively worse as the disease progresses (“kuru” is a Fore word for “to shake”). In the late stages, the patient shows other neurological symptoms such as uncontrollable laughter and emotional instability. By this point, their tremors and ataxia (lack of coordination) is so severe that they cannot sit without support. They may also suffer from inability to speak or swallow, become unresponsive to their surroundings, develop ulcers on the skin and become incontinent (cannot hold urine/faeces). Within 3 months to 2 years after the symptoms develop, the patient dies.

Kuru is exclusive to the Fore tribe and medical researchers were puzzled by the nature of this disease. It is incurable and takes more than 10 years to develop (from the time of infection). In 1961, Dr Michael Alpers discovered that kuru was spread due to a certain cultural behaviour within the tribe – cannibalism. The Fore tribe had a tradition of eating the corpse of a deceased tribe member at the funeral as to return their life force back in to the tribe. Of course, this involved the consumption of the brain as well.

It was discovered that kuru is caused by a strange pathogen known as a prion. Prions are misfolded pieces of proteins that cause disease by converting the body’s proteins into “wrong” proteins. These new prions then convert more proteins until the body is filled with deposits of such proteins. Prions mainly affect the brain and cause spongiform encephalopathy – meaning that the brain becomes sponge-like and full of holes. The most famous example of prion disease is mad cow disease.

After colonists took over Papua New Guinea, cannibalism was banned and kuru faded away. This was proof that cannibalism was what spread the prion from one victim to another. It was also discovered that women and children had a higher incidence as men would have priority in choosing what part of the body to eat first. As with lions, the men always chose muscles first and women and children would often finish the organs such as the brain. As prions are indestructible, it cannot be treated, cured or prevented (other than not eating brains). It also means that it transmits perfectly from a dead patient to an unsuspecting victim who is feasting on the infected brain.

A disease that causes the brain to disintegrate, causing limb shaking and inability to walk, spread by the ingestion of brains. Is it possible that zombies are caused by eating brains and not the other way around?

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