Did Pythagoras Really Compare Eating Beans to Cannibalism?

Pythagoras left no written works -- everything we know about his teachings comes from followers and later writers, some writing centuries after his death around 495 BCE. The bean prohibition is mentioned by multiple ancient sources (Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch) but each gives different reasons. Some say Pythagoras believed beans contained the souls of the dead. Others cite their resemblance to human embryos. The 'eating your parents' heads' version comes from Diogenes Laertius, writing roughly 700 years after Pythagoras lived. Modern scholars have proposed more practical explanations: favism (a genetic enzyme deficiency common in the Mediterranean that makes fava beans toxic), or the fact that beans cause flatulence which disrupted meditation. The truth is we simply cannot know what Pythagoras actually said about beans, if anything specific at all.