With parts of the world classified as ‘food insecure’, it is only a matter of time before science turns to alternative food sources, and, frankly, it doesn’t get more alternative than this. A recent report from Digital Trends claims that Japanese researchers have successfully created edible material out of human solid waste.
And if you must know, no, the researchers did not get human waste straight from the toilet bowl.
They had to dig it out of sewage mud; which happens to be the main catalyst for this study.
Tokyo Sewage asked lead researcher, Mitsuyuki Ikeda, and his team if they could possible come up with a way to utilize sewage mud in Tokyo seeing as how there’s just too much of it.
After lab tests, Ikeda found that human waste was very high in protein, thanks to all that bacteria.
The fun part started when the researchers extracted the protein from the sewage mud, worked their scientific magic on it by combining it with some enhancers, added some soy proteins and voila, the “feces steak” was born.
And just to make it more appetizing, they also added some red food coloring, just to give it that ‘medium rare’ feel.
Once you’re done cringing and shaking your head in disbelief (or disgust), it might interest you to know that it has been taste-tested and the consensus is that it tastes just like beef, and is nutritious, to boot.
According to Ikeda, the poop patty is “63% protein, 25% carbohydrates, 3% lipids, and 9% minerals.”
The meat also happens to be better for the environment since it could significantly cut down the greenhouse gas emissions that come from slaughterhouses, according to the report.
All the talk about environmental responsibility and curbing global hunger may all be well and good, but can one really get over the ‘eww’ factor of eating burgers made out of one’s own waste?
Ikeda certainly hope so, and is even optimistic that his creation will someday lead the culinary revolution.
Just don’t eat it raw, say food safety experts.
Writers at LiveScience picked up on this story and asked experts if it is feasible to eat human feces, and the answer is a hesitant yes, but it needs to be cooked so one can be sure that all “noxious pathogens” are thoroughly nuked.
Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at a leading American university, likens it to plants that have been fertilized using manure, “because the nutrients in the poop become part of the plants.”
When put that way, that salad you just had for lunch might just be the tamer cousin of the meat of the future.
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