Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Scientist Creates Meat Substitute From Sewage
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."
Disgusting. I'd rather eat soylent green.
Try dericious shitty meat!
Soylent Brown is Poop-le!
Sorry, it was too easy.
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.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
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.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Another solution to the global food crisis is to stop having massive freakin steaming piles of babies. (*Gives various religious doctrines a condemning glare*).. Further developing the pwned world would probably go a long way too.. If everyone can afford an xbox, they'll be too busy getting killed playing Halo to go reproduce. AHh, forget it, let's just chow down on some shit-jerky and "go to town"..
The breath mint industry probably paid for this research.
From the video: "Once the research is complete and it's put on the market we'll probably be able to price it at roughly the same level as normal meat." Hmm, should I buy the ribeye or the extruded soy-supplemented feces meat? At the same price, the choice is so difficult....
Like puzzle games? Warehouse51 for iOS
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.
Recycling nutrients for space travel is essential. Astronauts already drink water that is extracting from human urine. Extracting proteins and lipids from human waste could be just as important.
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
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.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Googling the researcher's name and his institution only brings up this story. Looks like you someone successfully trolled slashdot.
McDonalds has been doing this for years.
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
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.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
It was some years ago now, but i want everyone to know that i (*me*) devised a method for the reverse process. I'm still seeking my patent on the methodology.
I wonder if consuming cayenne pepper beforehand will give the product a southwestern flair. Or if like... eating ginger and lemongrass will give it a pan-Asian spin. etc.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Oh, they're going to run into real trouble here, McDonald's has a patent on this.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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...
To avoid criticism; Say nothing, Do nothing, Be nothing.
Now they can revive the "I'd Hit It!" campaign.
All they need to do is add an 'S'...
I can see the fnords!
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, then we are going to keep seeing 'food crises'. Increasing the food supply, food distribution or even quality of food is not going to change that.
If you want to solve the global food crisis, adopt socialistic policies
Don't get me wrong, I tend towards the socialist end of the spectrum politically and philosophically, but if you _really_ want to solve the food crises, activate for increased levels of education (this has a high correlation with lowered birth rates) and against social and cultural mores that put a premium on multiple children and/or reject contraception.
Funny you should say that because I was thinking, if this becomes popular and I become a cannibal, does that make everyone who eats food made from my crap a cannibal too?
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 possible.
This is apparently an story that has resurface around the web. Only this time it's gotten more attention. Googling with various date range and looking for "Environmental Assessment Center, Okayama, Japan" - "Mitsuyuki Ikeda" gets the same story popping up all the way back to a L.A. Times article dated 1993, and shows an enormous absence fact checking since.
...
From News of the Weird | News of the Weird | Chicago Reader - Related web pages
www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/news-of-the ... "
..."
" 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
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.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
To be fair, McDonald's is one of the few only FFRs/QSRs to use 100% real beef 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
Uh-huh. And the stripper really likes you.