Japanese Scientist Creates Meat Substitute From Sewage 417
An anonymous reader writes "Hold on to your hamburgers — Japanese scientist Mitsyuki Ikeda at the Environmental Assessment Center in Okayama has invented an artificial meat substitute made from human feces. The unseemly meal is made by extracting protein and lipids from 'sewage mud.' The lipids are then combined with a reaction enhancer and whipped into 'meat' in an exploder. Ikeda makes the 'meat' more palatable by adding things like soy protein."
Mmmm (Score:2)
Hey, is that corn?!
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Doubleplusgood this. Did you know I don't think there's a single piece of meat in this stew? Looks like meat. Tastes like meat. Isn't meat at all. Doubleplusgood!
— George Orwell, 1984.
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Look at the 'Fridge shot: It says "Shit Burger".
Re:Mmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, they're going to run into real trouble here, McDonald's has a patent on this.
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Now they can revive the "I'd Hit It!" campaign.
All they need to do is add an 'S'...
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To be fair, McDonald's is one of the few only FFRs/QSRs to use 100% real beef [wikipedia.org] in their burgers. A close friend of mine with Celiac disease tests off the charts with her gluten reaction, and McDonald's beef is the only fast food beef she can tolerate.
I still laughed, though. +1
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Another market, although admittedly not a big one, could be the space industry. Reprocessing of human waste directly into food has definite applications in long manned space missions. If you had a moon base, for example, this kind of technology could be used to increase the time between resupply missions and potentially could save hundreds of millions of dollars. Not to mention that it might give the moon base occupants some real incentive to get extraterrestrial food gardens up and running as fast as possi
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So you have been to City Sushi? Heheheh oh this is bad...
um... (Score:3)
Disgusting. I'd rather eat soylent green.
Re:um... (Score:5, Funny)
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Damn, you beat me to that joke... It was the first thing on my mind after reading the title...
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Well, this is simply soylent brown.
I'm sure I saw this story a few years ago. They were making burger patties out of recycled excrement. I joked about the MacShit(TM)
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"Soylent Brown is digested people!"
Re:um... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Disgusting. I'd rather eat soylent green."
With this technology you can eat soylent green. Again, and again, and again.
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Re:um... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not all that much more disgusting than fast food as is.
Okay either your fast food is a lot worse than what it is like here, or you have no sense of taste or smell. The fast food might not be good for you, but it shouldn't be so bad as to make you ill the way poo does, and it is designed to be appetizing despite being bad for you.
"soylent green is people" (Score:2)
suddenly sounds reassuring
i'd rather be a cannibal than a shit eater
although we do have the basis of a plot here for "human centipede 3"
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Soylent Brown is Poop-le!
Sorry, it was too easy.
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Ghawd i wish the whole human centipede meme would just go away. I thought nothing could be worse than tub girl or goatse, but in the end you know those two were complicit in their depravity, while the hc is torture on top of being hors-categorie sick, and the fact that it's fictional makes it none better. Flesh crawling now.
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No. It's cake batter. It's kinda funny really.
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shhhhhh!!!
don't spoil the illusion
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Uh-huh. And the stripper really likes you.
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do yourself a favor and do not satisfy your curiosity
what is seen cannot be unseen
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"i'd rather be a cannibal than a shit eater."
The two, it is worth mentioning, aren't mutually exclusive.
Harro, Shitty Wok (Score:3, Funny)
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That's Lacist!
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One order shitty beef and one order shitty chicken
someone will eat it (Score:5, Insightful)
We're always seeing people eating strange things, whether it be fish that may or may not be lethal, to tasties like cow brains and pig testicles, this will be no different. There will be some that will eat it. If nothing else, ship it to people that would much prefer turdburgers to starvation. But the start will probably just be people eating it for the shock/novelty value.
The scientist says his goal is to make it the same price as regular meat... I think they're going to have to go a little better than that, make it cheaper. If you can drop the cost per calorie/nutrient down to at least that of say, grain, it'd be an ideal foodsource for places that need food relief. Right now they don't see meat because of cost - grain is still their cheapest alternative. This would be a lot higher in protein, so if they could at least match the cost, that'd be a hit.
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As soon as I read that this stuff could be used to feed the starving I thought: Great. Another way to further de-humanize the starving poor of the world.
I can imagine someone saying something along the lines:
"These people eat out shit for gods sake"
Re:someone will eat it (Score:5, Funny)
Wow.
Starving masses in Africa eating our bourgeois American white-people feces.
That would be a total PR shit storm.
Re:someone will eat it (Score:4, Informative)
I stole this from Wikipedia shhh don't tell them.
"Allura Red AC is one of many High Production Volume Chemicals.
Red AC was originally manufactured from coal tar, but is now mostly made from petroleum. Despite the popular misconception, Allura Red AC is not derived from any insect, unlike the food colouring carmine, which is derived from the female cochineal insect."
Re:someone will eat it (Score:4, Funny)
Scientist's Advertisement on Google, "EAT SHIT" or wait.. "Check This Shit Out!". OK, someone had to say this.
I'll [bet] that scientist wants to charge as much as a T-bone or Prime Chuck! He's in this shit up to his knees for what, notoriety?
Waiter!!! There's a fly in my excrement!
Let them eat cake 2.0 (Score:2)
Perfect! (Score:2)
This looks perfect for a Japanese gameshow.
Another option (Score:3, Insightful)
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All the places to which Spain and Portugal brought the Catholic dogma against contraception certainly do have a reproduction problem, although they can't see it that way.
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Not to justify the Catholics, but they do allow for not having sex.
That is actually an option you realize.
But yes, if you must give into your impulses, I can see how you'd be confused and think its their fault you're reproducing.
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Yeah those stupid people being people... Millions of years of evolution are pretty powerful.
Much like the abstinence movement in America, telling people to not have sex doesn't work.
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There is no crisis. People who breed unwisely will be dealt with by events. That isn't a problem for the human race, just the losers.
Re:Another option (Score:4, Insightful)
Another solution to the global food crisis is to stop having massive freakin steaming piles of babies.
Or, just a modest proposal here, have more babies.
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The problem of course, is that most religious doctrines don't say "go out and have piles of babies". In fact, off hand, I can't think of a single one.
That birthrates in the dev
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The problem of course, is that most religious doctrines don't say "go out and have piles of babies". In fact, off hand, I can't think of a single one.
Genesis 1:28 [google.com]
In fact, birthrates primarily vary with two simple factors - education and women's rights. You might want to get yourself some of the former.
Both are vigorously and often brutally suppressed by various Christian denominations, Roman Catholicism in particular, and in stricter interpretations of Islam, such as the Taliban. You might want to get yourself some of the former, neh?
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Let's posit your idealised government with idealised economics. Let's also posit a perfectly efficient distribution method, let's move most cities off the arable land they sit on and into less 'useful' regions. Now we can support an even greater population.
Which we will proceed to reach and then attempt to exceed as we have done every other time the constraints on food have been lifted.
Until we consciously and deliberately manage our populations
Breath Mints Win! (Score:4, Funny)
Choices, choices (Score:3, Insightful)
The Yes men proposed this years ago ! (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP_nNemsNT8
They even suggested a pipe line between the US and developping countries, to convey the "food".
They only thing they failed to predict was the state of the US economy, which may require to operate the pipeline in reverse.
This is a huge deal for space travel (Score:5, Insightful)
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Beat me to it. This is the obvious benefit. I doubt it will ever be the marketing coup that "astronaut ice cream" was, though.
This could be "astronaut soft serve"
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You won't be able to recycle feces for protein for very long. Other nutrients, sure, but just like recycling water from urine, that's not particularly difficult.
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Astronaut 1: "And you thought drinking your own recycled pee was bad... Ha!"
Only in Japan (Score:3)
Once I think I've gotten used to the weirdness that comes out of Japan -- they go and top themselves.
I suppose they'll be coming out with Tentacle and Used Panty flavored Shit-Meat® in short order
I call bullshit... (Score:3)
There are lots of strange things that can be made edible (snails, bugs, pond-scum, dogs, cats, etc).
Why choose what is probably the most disgusting choice, excrement? And if you have to choose excrement, why does it have to be "human" excrement?
TFA even shows the scientist with a bag labelled "shit burgers"! This sounds totally like an attempt at simply getting some hits on You Tube.
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It's just made from the chemical in it. That is all. DO you know what happens to treated waste now?
Here the sewage is filtered, the water is purified and sent into the river, and the crap is treated and then slung iout into crop fields, where plant bring up the chemicals and turn them into taste food.
This is the same thing, just don'e better and faster.
This could be a valuable tool for space flight.
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Why choose what is probably the most disgusting choice, excrement?
I'd say there are more disgusting choices. Unprocessed excrement for one. Plutonium. Live children. Your own body parts.
Although if it was a choice of eating my own brain and eating my own poop, I might choose the suicideburger over the shitburger.
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When you are on a spaceship hurtling through the void, you dont have dogs, cats, or pond-scum to recycle. But you do have plenty of shit.
Like the childrens book says, Everybody shits.
Soylent Green is ... feces? (Score:2)
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From Logan's Run:
Box: "Fish, and plankton, and sea greens, and protein from the sea. It's all here. Ready! Fresh as harvest day!"
Of course, protein was the only accurate part of that statement. It still got the job done, as would refined shit paste (TM Taco Bell), it's just a matter of which fiction you prefer to cover up the gory details of the food supply. A tour of a meat processing plant would be gruesome as well.
You got trolled (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's not a troll -- it's just old news.
The WTO did a presentation [youtube.com] on this very subject several years ago.
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If it's not on Google, it's not real huh?
The possibilities are fantastic (Score:2)
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No not really, they still need electricity to run the processes, there is no such thing as a free lunch, even if you eat your own shit.
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They could use the changes in the gravity field as their costumers walk in.
Big deal... (Score:2)
No. (Score:2)
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But you already eat your own reprocessed shit. What do you think agriculture is?
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An abstraction layer?
So who did they pressure into testing it? (Score:4, Insightful)
This reminds me so much of elementary school recess.
"I'll give you my snack if you eat a bug, Timmy"
"No, I don't want to"
"What are you a wuss? It's just a bug"
(kids start chanting)
"Eat a bug!"
"Eat a bug!"
"EAT A BUG!"
Timmy eats the bug.
Timmy is still known as "that kid that ate the bug" at the 50'th anniversary high school reunion.
--
BMO
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Is your name Timmy, by any chance?
Urban saying acquires new meaning (Score:2)
Now just apply the inverse function (Score:3)
Cuttlefish & Broccoli or Vanilla Paste (Score:2)
Just another fine Sukuuvesta product! (Score:2)
SOYLENT BROWN IS MADE OF (Score:2)
Soylent brown is made of... eww...
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Thank God I wasn't the only one who thought of this...
Goddamn Laputans! (Score:2)
I have a question... (Score:2)
I have a question. Why would anyone even *work* on this? I mean, were scientists sitting at lunch kicking around ideas, and one of them picked up his Pulled Pork sandwich, and said "Heyyyyyyy, I just got a thought..."
If ever an article... (Score:3)
2 points to ponder (Score:2)
A few things to consider
1. The price of meat is more expensive in Japan then most countries. So saying they'll get the costs down that of japanese meat isn't really a draw card for most other western/american nations.
2. Compleating the food cycle? I thought we got mad-cow disease because we did this very thing with cows. We reduced the food chain and had cows eating cows, Rather then having intermedate agents inbetween.
Now we want to mimic that efficency with humans eating human shit...
Geez, what's an "exploder"? (Score:2)
I think I need one of those in my lab. But for now, I'll pass on the s**tburgers. I could get over the aesthetics, but TFA didn't convince me that viruses are eliminated from the raw materials.
Full Metal Jacket (Score:2)
Now, the next time I watch Full Metal Jacket, I will be reminded of this article when the line comes up, "It's a big shit sandwich, and everyone has to take a bite."
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Also...
Figures I would hit submit right before coming up with another smartass remark.
This development gives a whole new meaning to Assburgers.
"the major problem is the psychological barrier" (Score:2)
"the major problem is the psychological barrier"
well, no shit!
Bah! (Score:2)
So... (Score:2)
Currently it costs roughly 10 to 20 times the normal cost of real meat (granted due to research), and once all is said and done, not only will it not be cheaper than regular meat, but it will be around the same price.
What incentive would there be for someone decide to eat turds over meat again? You can't play the vegetarian card, I doubt you could play the taste card, I mean if it were half the price of meat or lower then maybe I can see a market, but the only market I can see is those kind of people who li
The Fine Print (Score:2)
What amazes me is they actually label it "poop burger" (unko baagaa) on the white board (when he uses the lady-finger pointer).
Yes Men (Score:2)
The Yes Men did this with re-Burger long ago.
Hufu hoax? (Score:2)
Old/Fake news? 2009, 2007 and mention of 1993 (Score:3)
" 2007 Sep 27, 2007 - The Environmental Assessment Center in Okayama Japan announced in October that it had manufactured an experimental sausage by adding soybean protein and steak flavoring tosewage solids from TokyoSewage isnt really such a dangerous and dirty thing said a spokesman However he did not
Check this http://www.google.com/search?q=Environmental+Assessment+Center,+Okayama,+Japan&hl=en&biw=1062&bih=543&prmd=ivns&sa=X&ei=OoD5TbWtNcTTiALGx9DnBA&ved=0CDgQpQI&tbm=&tbs=tl:1,tlul:1990,tluh:2010 [google.com]
http://www.greenkampong.com/food/scientists-makes-meat-from-poo/
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=119734.0 (2009)
http://absolutelyfobulous.com/2009/09/03/ooey-gooey-poop-burger/ (1993!!!!)
"Dec 30, 1993 - In October the Environmental Assessment Center in Okayama Japan announced that it had managed to make a sausage out of recycled Tokyo sewage by adding soybean protein and beef flavoring The company does not plan to market the product commercially however citing the main
So it is a genuine news story? Not sure, but smells very fake. Although both the alleged researcher and the organisation do have other mentions on the internet, only the organisation seems to be genuine.
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will there be a beverage made from urine?
Already there... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQB8mSwPDdo [youtube.com]
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What if the 'feces producer' was a vegetarian ?
There's a lot of mucus and dead red blood cells that get dumped into the colon. Poop is brown because of the red blood cells (it would otherwise be yellowish).
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Odd, I could have sworn there was something like this already...... AH! Right. "Tofu."
If I had to choose between shit burger and tofu? "Shit burger and a crab juice please."
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The WTO experimented with the McDung, Re-burger, and File-O-Feces sandwiches years ago!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593/
From your link (emphasis mine):
Storyline
A comedic documentary which follows The Yes Men, a small group of prankster activists, as they gain world-wide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization on television and at business conferences around the world. [...]