• chiliedogg@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      17 hours ago

      Yeah. You know all those is movies and stuff where people sink in lava?

      Nope. It’s too dense. You’d be so buoyant you’d just stay on top.

    • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.eeEnglish
      46·
      23 hours ago

      Alright so I got curious. For the non people-who-know-what-viscosity-is-measured-in people out there, viscosity is measured in centipoise, which is 1/100 poise. Water is 1 centipoise, hence why we use centipoise over poise. Don’t ask me any more than that because I have no idea what I’m talking about.

      Lava is anywhere between 10,000 - 1,000,000 cP. According to this chart, there are many edible things that fall within that viscosity. Now lava is very hot, so if we’re going to simulate the experience of eating lava in a safe way with edible ingredients, we need something that is that viscous at high temperatures. This page (PDF warning) says that 140f (60c) is the highest temp food can be without burning you immediately.

      There isn’t much on the above chart that is both edible and has its viscosity measured around those temps. The most promising one was chocolate, which is about 25,000 cP. But it doesn’t have a temperature listed. According to lived experience and my ass, melted chocolate has a pretty consistent viscosity at various temperatures, making it a suitable stand in for molten lava.

      However, viscosity isn’t the end all be all of a lava eating experience. Lava is rocks and rocks are dense. Lava also looks like it would be sticky. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything on the chart that matches the density of lava that is still edible (2600-2800 kg/m^3 for those who were curious). And there is also no unit of measurement for stickiness. But google tells me that some lava is sticky like peanut butter. So our edible lava needs to be considerably dense (thus, chewy) and sticky.

      With these things in mind (viscosity, chewiness, and stickiness), I think the best edible stand ins for molten lava would be hot peanut butter (250,000 cP), with honorable mentions being rice pudding (10,000 cP @100C), and hot toothpaste (70,000 cP @40C). Color them bright orange and maybe throw in some Carolina reaper for authenticity and baby you’ve got some edible lava going

      • jol@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        9·
        20 hours ago

        That seems suspiciously low viscosity. When we see lava running down a volcano it’s already cooling down, and is much more viscous. I think that’s the image OP has in mind when thinking of honey. Lava with the viscosity of warm chocolate would be lava fresh out of a volcano.

        • i_love_FFT@jlai.luEnglish
          3·
          16 hours ago

          If we use hot peppers to stimulate the nerve endings sensitive to “hot”, then we can probably cool down the chocolate such that it has the desired viscosity.

          Melted hot pepper chocolate with orange coloring, that would sell!

        • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          12 hours ago

          Idk. I’m an EMT with two semesters of community college under my belt lol. I was just googling and correlating things that I have no practical knowledge of

    • De_Narm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      1 day ago

      When does something count as being eaten - once you swallow it? I don’t think you’d succeed at that with lava.

      • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        1 day ago

        You’d be able to taste it which I think would fulfill the requirements of knowing its texture.

          • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            16 hours ago

            People who eat the Carolina reaper prove that this is both not a deterrent, and may in fact be the point. On the other hand I’ve never heard any of them talk about the texture afterward. So maybe the burning is too distracting.

            • rudyharrelson@lemmy.radioEnglish
              2·
              5 hours ago

              As someone who’s eaten many sauces and spice blends that incorporate Carolina reaper peppers, spiciness isn’t the same as temperature with regard to heat. Lava’s heat is physically destructive and one’s tongue would likely be immediately burned beyond recognition. One wouldn’t have time to assess the “taste” or texture at all before writhing in agony from severe burns.

              In contrast, I can eat a hot sauce made from super hot peppers and, while I’m in agony from the extremely potent capsaicin in the peppers, I haven’t damaged my tongue in the process so I can actually taste the flavor and detect the texture of the food.

    • NeatoBuilds@mander.xyzEnglish
      21·
      1 day ago

      Just shove an insulated hose through your esophagus and out your bunhole and pass lava through it

  • hihi24522@lemm.eeEnglish
    144·
    1 day ago

    Ice is a mineral. Thus, water is lava. Hence, you eat lava every day, and it is not the texture of thick honey. QED.

    • GiveMemes@jlai.luEnglish
      7·
      1 day ago

      Gate to be the party pooper but lava is specifically molten rock, and rock is a mixture of multiple minerals. As single mineral is not rock. (As far as a quick Google is verifying, open to correction by an expert)

      • hihi24522@lemm.eeEnglish
        6·
        23 hours ago

        Does Hank Green count?

        Furthermore, by your definition of rock, basically all crystals are not rocks. Quartz is a single mineral. It is also considered a rock. As are all other gemstones which are a single mineral. If you think impurities count then again water counts because it has minerals like fluoride and carbonate and halite (salt) in it.

        Now one could make the argument that lava is specifically molten rock extruded from beneath the surface of a terrestrial planetary body to its surface. In which case, water on earth doesn’t typically fit that description unless it’s like melted permafrost that melted before getting drawn to the surface or something.

        However, on a very cold terrestrial planetary body which was comprised partly of ice, thermal vents / volcanoes would produce water and it would fit the definition of lava. Water is certainly lava in that context.

        Considering that physics is assumed consistent across the universe, water viscosity would have the same range regardless of where in the universe it was. Ergo, the water you drink may not be earth lava but it is the exact same viscosity as the water that is lava.

        So you still know what the mouthfeel of lava is even if you’ve never ingested any “real” lava.

        Sidenote, if you really do want to figure out how silicate lava feels, you could probably find the dynamic viscosity of a certain lava flow and then create caramel under the right conditions to get approximately the same viscosity. Eating butter and sugar might not be healthy but it definitely is less immediately damaging than pouring 700°C fluids into your mouth.