Japanese 'Poop' Steak

If you prefer your steak to be cooked rare, you may want to reconsider that choice after hearing about the latest advancement in food technology to come out of Japan: an edible steak made from human feces.

The steaks were first envisioned by Japanese researcher Mitsuyuki Ikeda after he was approached by Tokyo Sewage to come up with a solution for the city's overabundance of sewage mud. Although "eating it" probably wouldn't have occurred to most people, Ikeda recognized that the mud was chock full with protein-rich bacteria.

After isolating those proteins in the lab, Ikeda's team then combined them with a reaction enhancer and put them in an exploder. What eventually came out was no filet mignon, but it was edible.

"Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with this," said Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University. "It could be quite safe to eat, but I'm sure there's a yuck factor there."