The adage “I’ll eat my hat” is so old now that young people have no idea what it means, even those ill mannered hooligans who wear ball caps indoors and especially at table. Of course in those days, hats were made of felt or fur and the statement was largely figurative, usually being satisfied by the ingestion of one bite.
In the novel Catch 22 by Joseph Heller,[Link] the entrepreneur-capitalist Milo Mindenbinder corners the market on Egyptian cotton and then finds he was the market and is, in effect, stuck with a white elephant.[Link] In desperation he tried chocolate coating balls of cotton to no avail.
Now, scientists at Texas A&M U have discovered how to remove the toxin gossypol, which rendered cotton (0.22 protein but not clear what the units of the fraction formation are from the reportage) poisonous. AS a result, cotton is now edible.[Link]
Heretofore, edible clothing has largely been a sexual toy, constructed using some sheet or plasticized sugar or starch mixture. Now however, edible clothing is possible, closing the loop with our hunter-gatherer forebears who only wore the remains of food.
It also gives a whole new meaning to designer clothes.
Simple Country Physicist 