Japanese Scientist Makes Edible Steaks From Human Feces

A Japanese researcher, Mitsuyuki Ikeda, who is a scientist at the Environmental Assessment Center in Okayama, has apparently masterminded the making of an imitation meat product from human feces.

After Tokyo Sewage assigned Ikeda and his team the task of recycling the abundance of sewage in mud, Ikeda extracted lipids and protein from the bacteria in sewage mud, used a reaction enhancer to combine them, and put the ingredients in an exploder to create an artificial steak.

The researchers essentially synthesized meat from proteins found in human waste by extracting the basic elements of food — protein, carbohydrates and fats — and recombining them.

The meat is made from 63 percent proteins, 25 percent carbohydrates, 3 percent lipids and 9 percent minerals, according to Digital Trends. Soy protein is added to the mix to increase the flavor, and food coloring is used to make the product appear red.

Ikeda notes that his creation is low in fat and won’t raise carbon emissions or waste.

Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University, is not familiar with the researchers’ method, but imagines they are first heat-treating the sewage before the finished product.

Powell claims Ikeda’s edible feces concept is the same as eating plants that have been fertilized with manure or other excrement, since the nutrients in the feces become part of the plants.

“Theoretically, there’s nothing wrong with this,” Powell said. “It could be quite safe to eat, but I’m sure there’s a yuck factor there,” he said.

There is, however, the potential for cross contamination in the laboratory where the faux meat is made, according to Powell.

What makes this story even more bizarre is guessing what possible dystopian motives may be lingering in the minds of those in charge at Tokyo Sewage, since radioactivity from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has now somehow seeped into sewage in dozens of treatment plants.

According to ABC news, radioactive caesium has been found in sewage sludge in treatment facilities from Hokkaido in the north to Osaka in the west, as well as in Tokyo.

“So serious is the problem that Japan doesn’t know where to put the growing pile of contaminated waste”.

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Inquisitive foodie with a professional investigative background and strong belief in the organic farm to table movement. Author of Bad Seeds: A FriendsEAT Guide to GMO's. Buy Now!