Willis recently wrote about The Long View of Feeding the Planet and all I can say about this idea below is that it is too long wrong. But, this is exactly the sort of thing that some wacky eco-types would see as part of a “sustainable future”. Even Soylent Green sounds better.
From Digital Trends
It’s being called the “poop burger”. Japanese scientists have found a way to create artificial meat from sewage containing human feces.
Somehow this feels like a Vonnegut plotline: population boom equals food shortage. Solution? Synthesize food from human waste matter. Absurd yes, but Japanese scientists have actually discovered a way to create edible steaks from human feces.
Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, has developed steaks based on proteins from human excrement. Tokyo Sewage approached the scientist because of an overabundance of sewage mud. They asked him to explore the possible uses of the sewage and Ikeda found that the mud contained a great deal of protein because of all the bacteria.
h/t (I think) to WUWT reader “Ray”
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It has to be a hoax.
Look at the name on the fridge1:34 into the video.
Austin: Cor! This steak smells like shit!
Basil: It *is* shit, Austin.
Austin: Oh, good. Then it’s not just me.
[Eats]
Austin: [Smacks lips] It’s a bit nutty.
“Still I suppose those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it all over again.”
Or, at least, relieve it all over again…
Where did I put my replicator!? If I could just find it again, this would be a non issue!
Actually the beef from the Ishikawa Peninsula on the Sea of Japan side is quite underrated. I strongly recommend the readers travel there for the experience. With the small human population there, I can’t imagine why anybody would want to go through the trouble to take those resident’s feces and convert it to edible protein when the cattle do such a better job!
“this is so odd. Of a cultures, it is the Japanese who want to do this? I Love their esthetic, their art, food, industrial design. This is so un-Japanese.”
Really…
Pickled plums?
The Hizamakura “Lap Pillow”?
Anime?
What they do with minivans?
P___ drinker meet s____ eater?
I bet it tastes like crap but is bound to increase the profits of burger joints. ;>)
Pachauri, your dinner is served. It’s roast beef with plenty of runny gravy. Yummmm! ;O)
Fish feed, cattle feed, chicken feed, pet food, emergency food, prison food for serial killers and mass murderers — after you get past the disgust, this is a good idea, assuming heavy metals are sequestered.
In parallel, the feedstock can also be used to produce fuel — ethanol, butanol, methane, diesel. Some energy input is required, from sun or electricity, for the liquid fuels.
Thinking about feces is naturally disgusting, but feces as feedstock is worth thinking seriously about. Especially if food and fuel are expensive.
Seeing as the greens are so enthusiastic about recycling perhaps this meat is ideal for them.
I’ll never drink tap water in Singapore again. :O(
What’s happening in the East?
Septic Matthew says:
June 17, 2011 at 9:11 am
. . . . . is worth thinking seriously about . . . . If you are a bacteria!!
I am glad this post has had the effect of “releasing” from so many years of snipping.
Except for the possible “leaks” and cross contamination in the system, protein is protein but what is more scary is the 9% minerals (heavy metals?!). Now, that can make much more damage.
I suppose NASA could actually use such technology on long space travels or on Mars, not sure if the astronauts would enjoy their meals though but it surely must be considered already.
Now now now.come on you brave people… just think of it down at the molecular level. A carbon atom is a carbon atom, no difference if it originated from poo or a Kobe steer. It all is your head. Think of the whole process, you eat a carbon atom from a cow and your body simply reprocesses the molecular arrangement so that it becomes a carbon atom in poo, the bacteria then reprocesses that poo carbon atom arrangement back into a tasty protein.
ps. Regardless, let the greenies eat the poo they deserve it. There will still be Kobe beef that someone has to eat however, so it might as well be me.
@Jimbo says:
June 17, 2011 at 9:30 am
I’ll never drink tap water in Singapore again. :O(
“Using advanced technology it is now possible to re-use sewage effluent for drinking water, although Singapore is the only country to implement such technology on a production scale in its production of NEWater.”
Wiki
What’s happening in the East?
—–
REPLY Singapore, hell! How about L.A.?
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/06/la_dwp_sewage_drinking_water.php
At the University of Illinois, certain mad scientists are “deep” into the science of directly purifying raw sewage into “potable” water. The “yuck” factor is a huge barrier as you might expect.
Human feces is basically what human bodies cannot use. So to get something “nutritional” out of it would indeed be costly and involve massive amounts of poop. That they can do it I have no doubt. The question is why? The poop is much more useful as fertilizer since there are plenty of nutrients that plants like.
Reminds me of a story told in ag-econ classes. They had four pig sties – the first set of pigs got all the good food, the second the excrement of the first, the third from the second group, and the fourth from the third group. Guess which group of pigs was the fattest? The second!
Straight from the Firesign Theatre.
“So, has anyone tasted it. Anything like prime rib??”
Not yet. There are two college interns at the lab, continuing to conduct the most epic Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament known to mankind.
Just because you CAN do something does not mean you SHOULD. We could probably create a viable human-chimpanzee hybrid, but that doesn’t mean we should. When I lived in Amarillo I used to drive past a huge waste water treatment facility. Immediately across the street was a huge sod farm. They used the effluent from the treatment facility to grow grass. It was amazing how fast they could go from acres and acres of bare soil to acres and acres of lush, green sod.
Now it seems to me that it would be far more efficient to use waste water treatment effluent to grow grass and cattle to eat the grass to produce beef. I suspect it shall always be more cost-effective to raise cattle for protein. Animals, from bugs to beef, are our best and most efficient source of essential protein. It is possible to get all the essential amino acids from plant sources…but it ain’t easy and the sheer mass of plant matter that must be consumed is not inconsequential. Be healthy. Be prosperous. Eat animals…not shit.
Prions are proteins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion
Dr. Dave says:
June 17, 2011 at 10:37 am
Plants are usually good “sponges” of heavy metals and other chemicals from the environment. Sewage muds are not what they used to be and you can find all sorts of nasties in there. Recently they realized the mistake of using sewage to grow vegetables due to all sorts of horror stories. Even the vegetables grown at White House garden were not suitable for consumption. They contained too much heavy metals. Apparently they used sewage fertilizer for years on the grass there.
Feeding human sewage to cattle is another really stupid idea that will poison people.
Get ’em while they’re hot!
Hey dudes, that looks like mighty fine shit you got there…you gonna let me in on it? Sho’ smells like the real stuff, man…