A 25-year-old Chinese woman named Youyou has become an Internet sensation after cooking 99 roses into petal jam, Qianjiang Evening News reported on Dec. 23.

Youyou and her fiancée got engaged on Dec. 9, after he surprised her with 99 roses. She took the flowers home and put them into a vase. Several days later, many of the roses had withered, and some petals began to fall off. Youyou thought it was a pity to throw away the flowers, and an idea flashed into her mind: Why not make the flowers into jam?

Youyou crushed the cleaned petals and put them in a pan with water and sugar. She cooked them for about five minutes. Her fiancée was at work, so Youyou sent him a video sharing her project. She received three words in response: cannot be eaten. Youyou's mother also raised doubts when she saw the "jam.""Are the roses edible?" she asked her daughter.

Youyou turned to popular science periodical Bowu Magazine to find out. However, her question attracted a flood of netizens before she got an answer.

As a foodie, most of Youyou's posts are related to food. The "jam" was ultimately thrown away by her father. But the question still remains: Was Youyou's rose jam edible?

The official Weibo of Bowu Magazine offered a response: It cannot be eaten. First, the flowers were not cultivated to be eaten, and therefore contained pesticide. Secondly, the flowers Youyou used were modern Chinese roses rather than real roses. The Chinese rose has no sweet smell.

Li Nianlin, a senior engineer at Hangzhou Botanical Garden, pointed out that Chinese roses are a common plant from the Rosaceae family. Most of the roses available at markets are Chinese roses; real roses only bloom in March and April, and sell for a higher price. Only real roses can used for food, tea, wine, essential oil and traditional Chinese medicine.