For example, cheese is mold and mold that grows on food after it sits for a while is also mold, but that mold is disgusting whereas cheese is edible.
Cheese is not mold, though. Blue cheese contains it, other kinds are milk solids and maybe some bacteria.
Edit: To answer the question: Soy can be turned into either bioplastic or food. Pure carbon can be diamonds or soot/coal/graphite. Electrical resistance can either be unwanted waste or the primary purpose of the circuit (like in a space heater).
Well TIL! Thanks!
Starch is the nourishing part in a lot of our staple foods (potatos, cereals etc.) and easily digestible. Cellulose is a major component of wood (and cotton and paper) and of what we call “fiber” in our food, the stuff we cannot digest.
Both starch and cellulose are long, sometimes interlinked chains of glucose molecules. The only difference is at which corner of each glucose molecule the next is attached.
You can make just about anything from corn.
Food, sugar, fuel, sextoys, plastic… The list is pretty long.
The neat part about that is it also ties fuel and food together as (partly) interchangeable items.
During fuel shortages, ramp up corn -> fuel production. During food shortages, reduce/cease corn -> fuel production.
i like how taco bell manages to create ‘new’ items out of the same 6ish ingredients. does that count?
Taco Bell’s menu:
- Finely ground beef
- refried beans
- shredded cheese
- sour cream
- a small handful of shredded lettuce
- a few pieces of tomato
- a single bean
- tortilla or taco
Rocks and minerals, whether they are refined or not: roads and building materials; ore processed into elemental metals; soils (biologically, chemically, and physically weathered rock); quartz is used for glass (melted and shaped) and timepieces (piezoelectric application of quartz); micas: (windows made of thin leaves, Muscovite), used as reflective additives in road paint and makeup; gypsum is used as fertilizer, sidewalk chalk, plaster, drywall, etc. The list goes on and on, but my point is, geology provides many things in our world that are considered mundane or often overlooked.
Ice and snow. Rock and sand.
Another one about cheese: The cheese blocks you can get at the super market are reasonably small-portioned food items. The moon is a celestial body revolving around the Earth at a distance of around 250,000 miles, yet both are made from the same material. Makes you think.
