Japanese scientist creates edible meat alternative made from recycled human waste

Thursday, June 16, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: turd steaks, human waste, health news

(NaturalNews) If you think meatless, genetically-modified (GM) soy food products are a poor alternative to real meat, wait until you see the latest in vegetarian meat replacement technology. According to a recent Inhabitat report, Japanese researcher Mitsuyuki Ikeda has developed a new kind of meatless burger made from soy, steak sauce essence, and -- brace yourself -- protein matter extracted from human excrement.

Ikeda's poop burger is literally derived from "sewage mud," which is just a nice way of saying that it was created from human waste. By extracting the protein and lipids from this "mud," Ikeda was able to take these components, add a reaction enhancer to them, and process the slurry into a meat-like product. Ikeda then added a steak flavoring agent, soy sauce, and food coloring to the mix, and voila, an imitation meat product that he says tastes just like real beef.

According to reports, the final meat-like product is 63 percent protein, 25 percent carbohydrates, nine percent minerals, and three percent lipids.

"I admit that few people would be keen to eat it knowing it's made of human excrement," said Ikeda in an interview. "As far as the cost is concerned, because at the moment it includes the cost of research, our artificial meat is 10 or 20 times more expensive than normal meat. But 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."

Ikeda added that, because his turd steaks are low in fat, they will supposedly be of interest to those who love to eat burgers but who want to watch their calorie intake.

You can watch a video explaining Ikeda's process of turning stool samples into savory steaks here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1N6QfuIh0g

Sources for this story include:

http://inhabitat.com/poop-burger-japanese-re...