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Inside This Issue
1
Melodies That Mend
2 2 3 3 4
How Burnout Can Signal Depression
The Good Kind of Eye-Raising Experience
Mysterious Skin Bumps Explained
Teriyaki Beef Skewers
Why One of History’s Greatest Minds Refused to Eat Beans
Pythagoras (yes, the one responsible for making high school geometry a nightmare) had a dark secret. He wasn’t just a mathematical genius; he was also utterly and irrationally terrified of beans. Specifically, fava beans. And not just in an I-don’t-like-their-texture kind of way. He believed they were portals to the underworld, conduits for lost souls, and, perhaps most offensively, they caused distracting gases.
Another theory suggests Pythagoras believed beans were literal doors to the underworld. He wasn’t alone in this, as the ancient Greeks and Romans were suspicious of fava beans, perhaps because they could cause a rare and severe genetic reaction called favism. Unbeknownst to the ancients, some people (especially in Mediterranean regions) have a genetic deficiency that makes fava beans potentially deadly. So, weirdly, Pythagoras may have been onto something, but not for the reasons he thought. THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE GOLDEN THIGH Of course, bean phobia wasn’t Pythagoras’s only claim to strangeness. His followers believed he was a demigod, possibly the son of Hermes or Apollo. They claimed he could tame wild animals just by speaking to them and that he had the power to write messages on the Moon. But the most outrageous legend? He supposedly had a golden thigh. He would flash his shimmering leg whenever someone doubted his divine status and instantly gain a new believer. And yet, despite all this mysticism, Pythagoras’s biggest fear was beans. This just goes to show that even history’s greatest minds had their odd quirks; some were just more odd than others.
Ancient Wisdom or Legume Lunacy?
Legend has it that Pythagoras was so committed to avoiding beans that, when fleeing from attackers, he and his followers refused to run through a blooming fava bean field. Instead of making their great escape, they chose to stand and fight. Spoiler alert: It didn’t end well for them.
THE PHILOSOPHER WHO FEARED BEANS MORE THAN DEATH
THE PHILOSOPHER VS. THE BEAN So, why was Pythagoras so scared of a simple legume? One of the more
eyebrow-raising explanations is that he believed fava beans bore an uncanny resemblance to human reproductive
organs. Apparently, the connection was so strong in his mind that he once declared, “Eating beans and eating the head of one’s parents are the same thing.” That is quite the leap, even for a philosopher.
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