this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!

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What purpose does American cheese serve? What problem does it solve?

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[โ€“] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The issue is that "plastic" has multiple meanings.

Cheese is plastic the property.

Cheese is not plastic the oil product.

[โ€“] lvxferre@mander.xyz 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yup, it does have multiple meanings. That's why I said "arguably".

When people say "it's plastic!", they're usually conveying that it's made from inedible stuff, I'm aware that they don't mean "it's made from a polymerised substance that has been moulded while it still had some plasticity".


It's a bit of off-topic but your comment made me realise that it's theoretically possible to create cheese out of petroleum, air, and salt. It would be expensive and awful-tasting, but probably edible?

I might do the synthesis route of that just for fun.

[โ€“] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago

It might no even taste awful. Petroleum has a lot of interesting compounds that you could probably convert into flavor molecules if you could isolate them. This isn't an endorsement of the practice, but chemistry is pretty cool.