Imagine going to a lab, taking that out of your chemical drawer, and just yanking it into your mouth in front of everyone
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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Man I don't know if I could eat out of that canister.
Its so ingrained as "CHEMICAL, DO! NOT! EAT!" In my mind.
How about now?
That doesnt geht any reaction from me, as I dont use it. It's the USA safety sign, right?
Yes. Health, fire, reactivity, and other. Each rated 0-5.
0/5 health? You want to kill me?
the part of the label specifying "100% edible" really doesn't help with suspicions either 🤣
So are the stickers they put on bananas. And the banana peel itself! Doesn't mean I'm interested in eating them...
If you are a REAL lab rat, you don't really care. The stories I've heard of lab rats (including my own accidental stuff), I learned they don't really care at some point. They often say "Well, I must already have cancer, so what!".
I mean... with that attitude and behaviour towards safety rules... probably yes.
And yeah, nothing worse for teaching students proper and safe handling of chemicals than old technicians. "we never used gloves to pour THF out of this 10L vessel!" "ah just don't breath in too strongly and if you feel funny, go to the window and get a quick breath of fresh air".
Need some chocolate with that? NIST2384 Baking chocolate Sigma-Aldrich https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/GB/en/product/sial/nist2384?srsltid=AfmBOopx--55_9l7nhQq5Lj3_TytGKXo7EJw10v8TmN0tgjUOZEfZmOE
Nile red bought some and made horrible cookies. Turns out the chocolate was like a decade old.
1690 CHF ?!?!?!
It's a certified reference standard for scientific research, not food. The chocolate isn't even like expensive by the standards of NIST standardized food standards, e.g. NIST3287 blueberry is about half the price of the chocolate, but for 25g vs 455g.
Thanks for the explanation.
if you get bored:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjxpZHv7Hk
he makes an awful cookie out of decade old NIST standard ingredients.
We get eye drops by mail from a local specialty vet pharmacy. For our first few deliveries, the mailer contained one plastic bag with a prescription bottle and a second baggie with two green mints. Or rather, I assume they were mints. They were green like mints, but the bag wasn't labeled. I don't think they were individually wrapped, but I don't exactly remember. I'm sure they were thank you mints, but I also couldn't quite bring myself to eat an unlabeled item from a lab. They don't do it anymore, and that makes me kind of sad.
"To be consumed by amazing scientists". So, not me then.
Nonsense, grab a handful smartypants. You deserve it
Wait.
Is... does your lab setup just include this as, like... you're just in very fancy box with a treat dispenser for when you perform well?
Or is management maybe using the paradigm of treats are always available at regular intervals, unless you fuck something up, then, no treats?
Are we running a negative punishment or positive reward kind of lab here?
i think this is a container of ideal substance.
it’s kinda like there are a set of weights that is the master weight for metric, that all others are calibrated against.
this would be the ideal substance considered swiss chocolate, for use in verifying machines and other tests are calibrated to this substance.
from what i remember about these. they all taste terrible. but are technically edible.
They tend to be labeled as "Intended for research use only. Not for human consumption." not as "To be consumed by amazing scientists."
It's actually a promotional item for the ideal substances from Sigma-Aldrich, though.
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/campaigns/chocolate-raffle
... Ok.
That ... actually makes sense.
I must note that, not being a chemist or lab tech of any kind, my initial read of 'ideal substance' was platonic ideal... and I was going to ask some questions about that, but... not what you meant.
right. they are, as i understand it, chemically ideal, created of chemically “ideal” base ingredients, cooked at exacting temperatures and pressures, for exacting times. purified of anomalies at every step.
i imagine they taste like it too
Yeah haha!
I had to uh, frame shift my context for vocab... yes, that makes much more sense than... attempting to create a philosophically perfect example of a swiss chocolate, in a lab, hahaha!
How do we empirically measure a qualia, anyway?
An 'unsuitable for dogs and cats' label might be apt
is there swiss chocolate in there or swiss chocolate flavoured edibles?
Apparently this isn't for purchase anywhere. This would make a great gift for a science friend!
How to keep your kids out of your snacks.
I found a blog post about this. The bottle in this particular image doesn‘t look like the one in the blog post, but it‘s a similar idea.
I don’t think cocoa can grow in Switzerland…
They've got some good dairy cows though, for the "milk" part of "milk chocolate"
No no no no no no no. Absolutely not!