Is astrophage edible? Asking for a friend O-O
First of all, it's scalding hot—over 96 °C, so over 200 °F. It would burn your tongue, throat, etc... so that wouldn't be very fun!
And then, there's the high likelihood that it wouldn't even get digested. It has a very tough exterior meant to withstand very tough conditions. This exterior can be broken with direct trauma to the membrane, but the cells are so small that this could only really be done with a veeeery thin needle, your teeth wouldn't be able to just chew through it.
However, you can consume Taumoeba. And Taumoeba consumes Astrophage.
(Which, I would love to figure out how... do they poke through the membrane as well? Or maybe it's a special enzyme? I dunno. It's been bugging me.)
Anyways. The best thing about Astrophage is its ability to store energy. Up to 1.5 million Joules of it. But, when consuming another organism, 90% of that energy gets lost as heat. So only 10% of those 1.5 million Joules actually makes it to the Taumoeba, and by the time that makes its way to you, you'll only get to enjoy 1% of the original energy. So, 15,000 Joules.
This is good, though! Since 1.5 million Joules is over 358 thousand calories, and that's a lot for the body to take in at once. 15,000 Joules makes that a much smaller serving of 3585 calories, so the energy intake is far more manageable. A single Taumoeba will provide you with enough energy for over a day.
(However, it doesn't have much going for it in terms of nutrition or taste. Unfortunately...)
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