Eat shit! No, really!
City chefs react to Japanese researcher’s burger made out of human waste
When in Japan, try to steer clear of this new delicacy — the shit burger. Yes, that’s exactly what Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, is calling his new creation.
He came up with the concept after Tokyo Sewage asked him to find a way of using up the city’s waste. Ikeda found that human excreta which filled up the system, was “packed with protein because of all the bacteria.” His research team extracted the proteins to create an artificial steak, which is turned red with food colouring and flavoured with soy. The ‘meat’ is currently 10 to 20 times more expensive than an average beef burger due to research costs. However, Professor Ikeda hopes to bring costs down over time. The team claims that in initial tests, people reported it was delicious and tasted like beef. Our chefs react to the crap-in-a-bun idea: Chef Rajesh, says, “This is a little too out of the way, in the name of innovation. It is bizzare to create a burger steak made from human waste and I would personally never taste it.” On the other hand, Chef Jugesh Arora feels that whatever the measures taken, the hygiene levels of such an offering will still be in question. He gushes, “I’m totally against this, not only because of the ‘waste’ factor, but also because I am against the use of artificial food colourants. And, come on, there are more natural ways of including protein in your diet.” And then there are those who think this is nothing but a publicity gimmick. Chef Regi Matthew, who agrees with that school of thought, says, “This whole thing is just to create a storm in the media. Even in Japan, where people eat all sorts of things, I don’t think this burger will be found palatable by a majority of people.”
Melissa D’costa, with inputs from
Anusha Vincent
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