TIL that Germany created synthetic butter from coal during WW2. It was described as nutritious and of agreeable taste. - eviltoast
  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 months ago

    it’s funny seeing people struggle to handle the fact that we and our food is primarily made of carbon and hydrogen, which is exactly what coal and other fossil fuels are made of as well.

    this, and margarine in general, aren’t some horrid “chemical” product, it’s just carbon and hydrogen (and some other stuff) assembled into fat!

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The problem with a lot of synthetics it produces molecules that are chirally or structurally different from the target molecules. People forget like WW2 is like 10-15 years after a bunch of people were poisoned by “wonder supplements” like radium. People should be skeptical of a WW2 recipe.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Ok, let’s not compare something objectively bad for you like consuming energetic ionizing radiation and a hydrocarbon made from an objectionable fossil fuel.

        They’re still trying to make things with coal, like protein, and of course butter and margarine. I could find no references to chirality of molecules in coal “butter”, only that the difficulty in separating out the unwanted things like gasoline make the process inefficient and difficult.

        And we’re not done with people consuming stupid things under the auspices of it being healthy for you. Doesn’t matter if it’s “polarized water” or consuming dewormer to ward off covid, people at perfectly happy to do dumb things.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          separating out the unwanted things like gasoline make the process inefficient and difficult.

          🫠

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Nile Red has a lot of videos that show these concepts and the power of chemistry and what you can do with it if you have enough understanding.

      https://youtu.be/NIVkBs7oWDI

      I wish I had scene videos like these in high school. It would have made chemistry so much less abstract.

    • halowpeano@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I envy the faith you have in process and quality control, especially knowing these products are produced by the profit seeking capitalist class who definitely do NOT feed it to their own families.

    • NaoPb
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      3 months ago

      Sounds better than Soylent Green. Because that’s made of people