If I had a stack of $100 bills, and I told you that for every bill you eat I will give you one to keep, how much money do you think you'd walk away with?
All in one sitting. You get one condiment of choice, and a large glass of water. Bills can be torn up before consumption but nothing is stopping you from housing full Benjamins and digging for gold in the bathroom later. I think I could probably eat at least 10, and I would pick BBQ sauce.
I'd lure you to give me a bill for me to eat, then walk off with my free 100$ (no way I'm putting money in my mouth)
You think this is my first rodeo? You gotta put down a credit card as collateral. Don't worry, the bills are clean. I'm in the money laundering business.
Yeah if someone came down with a stack of money like that I'd take the freebee and tell them to go to hell.
I have no idea what $100 dollar bills are made out of, but if it's paper then I think you're in trouble especially since there's no time limit on the one sitting.
I surely wasn't the only kid to eat an obscene amount of paper, right? RIGHT?
US bank notes are a blend of 75% cotton and 25% linen plus trace amounts of whatever is in the ink and security features.
I'd fold them tight to the size of a pill and swallow them. I could do 100 easily, but I'd shoot for at least a thousand.
Do you really think you could fold it to the size of a pill though? I think that would be a hard pill to swallow.
I'm pretty sure they successfully did this on one of the lost episodes of Mythbusters.
This. This is the strategy.
I hopefully get time to do my research to make sure my country's currency doesnt have any toxic products, if its not the case id say somewhere in the thousands/tens of thousands. Especially if i can just tear them down to pieces and eat them with sauce.
Sauce or some kind of smoothie
This is the way, I think. Trying to swallow them whole will only lead to disaster, unless you have zero gag reflex (no judgment). And I think I'd go with artichoke dip.
If strictly USD 100 bills: not worth it since destruction of legal tender is illegal and I won't risk you ratting me out. But if I get to choose a currency where it's legal (such as Euros) and which don't contain much plastic... probably as much as can fit in my stomach which is probably a few hundred bills.
You could eat a few HUNDRED??? /s
I mean why not? A typical bank note weighs about 1g and probably has a similar density to most starchy food. With enough condiment and water, eating half a kilo of the stuff isn't something I'd enjoy on a daily basis but totally worth it if I get paid the equivalent of half a year's salary.
I honestly thought you meant a few bills, each worth a hundred, and I was trying to make a joke.
Starchy food is mostly water - around 75% for potatoes. So 500g of zero-moisture would require 1.5L of water to break even not with 500g of potatoes, but with 2kg potatoes, or 80-85% of a 5-pound sack of potatoes for our US readers.
Bottom line, 500g equivalency to starchy food would be to eat 2kg of potatoes with no additional water. Ambitious!
That's for raw potatos and you assume fully water-free bank notes. While I couldn't find how much water a cotton-fiber blend would draw from the surrounding air, I found the water content of potato chips to be around 3%. Eating the equivalent of 4-5 regular sized bags of chips with barbeque sauce sounds absolutely doable. Not pleasant, not healthy but definitely something I'd attempt for 50000 bucks.
You're right that I'm assuming bank note moisture is negligible or sealed, which may or may not be the case in practice. However, raw potatoes are 79% water and baked potatoes are 75% water (re-reading, I see that I didn't actually say baked, my error).
My source for 3% water content in potato chips: Module III Shelf Life Testing of Foods Chapter 6 - IUFoST which roughly matches the results from this table in Tarmizi, Niranjan - Combination of Moderate Vacuum Frying with High Vacuum Drainage—Relationship Between Process Conditions and Oil Uptake. Could be wrong though, I'm not a food scientest, just a guy who likes to nerdsnipe himself.
The source I linked has a similar water content for potato chips, no dispute there. We could say that stack of 500 Benjies would be like eating 2 full bags of potato chips (an amount that would be 2,500+ calories of chips, for scale) with zero water, if you'd prefer to imagine how your digestive system would fare with that instead? Whether fried or baked, all I'm saying is it would be ambitious. :)
If you managed to eat several hundred bills I wouldn't dream of snitching on you out of respect and sheer awe. I'd probably give you a few extra just for the show
We need an actual Doctor to consult on the effects of eating banknotes on one's system. Who knows even one might give you a serious problem.
https://www.askdrmaxwell.com/2014/05/bacteria-on-money/
Paints a picture of all the nasty substances that can contaminate the bills in your wallet.
Do I have to keep them down? Because if I can rip and salt them before, I can eat a lot, but I'm going to need my stomach pumped. Even if there isnt something toxic in there, they will cause a bowel obstruction.
Speaking from real world experience, I can consume around 1 kilogram relatively comfortably, with normal water consumption. I might be able to push that to 1.1kg with minimal water, but I wouldn't if yakking means I lose it all.
Aren't american dollars mostly paper anyways?
They are 25% linen and 75% cotton. Neither are very good for digestion but probably harmless unless those crumpled corners cut your custard dispenser on the way out
I see