HBO's The Last of Us is based on Naughty Dog's award-winning video game franchise, The Last of Us. But, while it's done an excellent job adapting the first game, the show hasn't been afraid to take some creative liberties. Case in point, the first episode confirms the source of the outbreak and how it spread so quickly around the world, which is different from the way that the game tells the story.
As spotted by r/anagnost, the reason behind the rapid spread of the Cordyceps brain infection is one common household ingredient: flour.
If you don't believe us, we've summarized the very plausible theory in a few bullet points:
At the start of Episode 1, Sarah tells her father, Joel, that she couldn't make birthday pancakes because they've run out of pancake mix, which, as you guessed it, contains flour.
Tommy and Joel argue about where Jakarta is located in the world and Sarah corrects them that it's located in Indonesia. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is the world's largest flour mill
