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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Thanks, Anthony. I was hoping you’d like it. here are two more in the same vein (takeoffs of fast-food ads), although these aren’t home runs:
Where’s the beef!?
Heave it your way.
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.
The significant protein content of fresh human stool has been known for quite a while, plus it’s “organic”. So add a few “fresh vegetables” and you’re in business, or not. Once an evil redneck woman I know fixed up a dip from fresh cow dung + garnishments for her ex-husband, who was best friends with her current husband. In fact the 3 were very good friends and always playing practical jokes on each other. Finally the ex exclaimed, “This stuff tastes like $h**!” “Just testing you, Donny. We were wondering if you’d gone hippie on us.”
Did you hear about the cannibal who passed his mother-in-law in the woods?
(Think about it…… };>) )
Computers – GIGO.
People – PIPO ????
Wouldn’t this surely follow the Law Of Diminishi(t)ng Returns?
Wouldn’t this also lead to even more off-color comments?
Finally, it appears the sage of the restroom was correct, when he penned
“Flush twice. It’s a long way to the kitchen!”
“Even the vegetables grown at White House garden…contained too much heavy metals…Feeding human sewage to cattle is another really stupid idea that will poison people.”
Just had to Ratt you out on your pun, there…
Leave it to the Japs to finally figure out a way to polish a turd.
While we are all sharing a good laugh, please keep these facts in mind:
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
There are millions of poor souls on the planet who would probably be more than happy to eat this stuff if they had a chance.
Leave it to the Japs to finally figure out a way to polish a turd.
That was good… 🙂
They are shitting us–right?
“Let them eat sh*t”
Al-toinette Gore
Ian E says:
June 17, 2011 at 3:52 am
____________
BSE protein. I guess you imply that the protein itself is infective, i.e. prions.
Well, I don’t believe in prions. Load of crap, in my opinion, despite the Nobel Prize to Stan Prusiner. I recall, critical control experiments were mising the last time I looked into the work. Since the Nobel, it’s all too much like AGW. I met Prusiner, and didn’t like him at all. The lab personnel all seemed to be emotionally abused. I don’t want to get any deeper into the pros and cons of prions here. Let’s just say, I like to fight questionable science and don’t jump on the bandwagon just because “everyone” else is there.
More on topic: I’d rather not repeat the final scene from Pink Flamingos. Maybe this crap would taste better as Teriyaki jerky? So who was the guy who tasted it first? Probably somebody’s little brother.
This whole story is a crock of shit!
Hopefully, however, I’d feel safer eating my burgers medium rare!
Diarrhea…uh..uh….Diarrhea…uh..uh….Some people think it’s gross but it’s really good on toast…Diarrhea!
time for a shampoo commercial about now
No wonder them greens want you to use only one sheet of TP, they don’t want any filler in their S)(it burger!
114 or so responses.
And to think, nobody has even mentioned SPAM…
Will this mean that the letters now mean Sh*t Passing As Meat?
It appears that the topic of coprophagia has resulted in an outpouring of scatologic humor. The revulsion that people experience when confronted with this topic may be a survival instinct for reasons I’ll explain below. No-one has any qualms about eating produce which utilized the CO2 and minerals produced from decomposition of human feces as building blocks of vegetable protein. Back in the days when I would ponder how to create self-contained ecosystems in a colony ship, my designs assumed incineration of all fecal matter and piping the CO2 to algae in tanks. I never considered the possibility of harvesting bacterial proteins.
The one problem with bacterial proteins is that our GI tracts haven’t been designed to digest them. The other problem with bacterial proteins is that there are some nasty enterotoxins produced by bacteria such as C. difficile toxin, cholera toxin, etc. I expect that most of these bacterial protein toxins would have been denatured during the digestion process but I wouldn’t want to take a chance on some protein molecules surviving intact. Bacterial proteins are quite different than mammalian and plant proteins and one has to next consider the peptides which are produced by the digestive process and whether or not these peptides will have hormonal or toxic effects on the GI tract. Celiac disease is the result of an autoimmune reaction to the wheat protein gliadin and I would expect that the turd burgers would result in a plethora of new autoimmune gastroenterologic diseases as a result of ingestion of bacterial proteins.
Then one also has the problem of human immunologic reactions to bacterial lipids. I expect that some people would be very sensitive to these as some bacterial lipids are potent pyrogens in miniscule amounts. People vary in how leaky their small bowel is and I expect some people would react with chills and rigors after ingestion of a turd burger. Aside from providing employment for gastroenterologists and rheumatologists with the host of new autoimmune diseases, I can’t see much benefit from this recycling of bacteria. It would be far better to hydrolyze the proteins to free amino acids and utilize these for food. It would be important to break down bacterial lipids as the immune system is designed to react to these as their presence in the bloodstream triggers an immune response.
So, it appears that the negative reaction on this thread to this potential source of protein is well founded. While I have had no trouble eating insect sources of protein in the past, I’ll give this food source a pass. I wouldn’t feed it to my cat either.
This remnds me of something that happened during the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette made her infamous statement when told that the people were starving and had no bread. i now await a similar resonse from Japanease royalty,
“Let them eat Poop.”
@Hoser says:
June 17, 2011 at 4:40 pm
____________
More on topic: I’d rather not repeat the final scene from Pink Flamingos.
REPLY LOL!! R.I.P., Divine!!
As I suspected it is a spoof- Turdburger video debunked here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyRZdMBwojU