Pythagoras and the Bean Ban
Pythagoras, best known for the Pythagorean theorem, had a baffling fear and hatred of beans. He not only refused to eat them—he believed beans contained the souls of the dead. According to legend, he may have even died because he refused to run through a bean field to escape attackers.
Modern scholars debate whether the bean ban was symbolic or based on some ancient belief system. Regardless, it remains one of the weirdest dietary restrictions in history. The idea that a mathematician could be undone by legumes is strangely poetic.
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