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Here’s news worthy of a warning: You might want to finish whatever it is you’re eating before you read this.
Scientists have made cheese using someone’s toe bacteria. Yes, really.
Next time you’re in downtown Dublin, do yourself a favour and stop into the Science Gallery of Trinity College. There, you’ll be able to proudly tell everyone you know that you’ve seen cheese made from human bodily fluids and bacteria. Delightful.
The college have made fromage by using bacteria from people’s mouths, toes, armpits and even belly buttons.
It’s part of an exhibition currently running called ‘Grow your own… Life after nature” and demonstrates that by extracting different microbial strains from people’s bits, mixing in some milk and lactobacillus (another kind of bacteria), you’ll be left with a curdled substance which you can then take away and make cheese from (if you so wish). Yummy! (Post continues after gallery.)
Guilt-Free Dairy Ideas
The best bit? In what is a nice personal twist, each cheese actually smells similar to the body odour of the person who donated the bacteria.
Related:Meet Dr Pimple Popper, the YouTube star with the grossest (read: best) videos.
Microbiologist Christina Agapakis, who was responsible for the cheese making, admitted that she was "really excited about things that are sometimes a little gross, a little disgusting". We figured that.
Luckily, the cheese in the exhibition is not for eating yet, with Agapakis noting: "this isn't cheese for eating, it's cheese for thinking".
Regardless, I have thought about it and the idea of eating someone's toe cheese is enough to put me off fondue for life.
Related: “Today I tried ‘plopping’. And it did very good things for my hair.”
While it might sound ludicrous, Agapakis and her team aren't the first to experiment with Body Secretions Cooking.
Cecilia Westbrook, a PHD student from the University of Wisconsin, previously made headlines after she successfully made yoghurt from her own natural vaginal secretions. She described the end result as being "sour, tangy, and almost tingly on the tongue”.
