Your Weekly Questions: Would You Try A Slice of Human Cheese?

Your weekly questions provides a forum for you and fellow members of the food and tech community to ask questions and gain insights about products, research, and resources. Do you have any burning questions? Don’t be shy, send them my way (danielle [at] foodtechconnect [dot] com) and I’ll include them in the newsletter next week!

Last week I asked: Would you try a slice of human cheese? Does the idea of human cheese fascinate or disgust you? Can you articulate why?

It’s been fascinating reading your responses. Below, I have aggregated a selection of the responses from Twitter, the blog post, and Facebook.

I invite you to continue the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, or in the comments section. Your responses will be aggregated and posted next week.

Answers:

Sam Hack (my grandfather): I’d rather drink from the container.

Blairfromagier: Id try it. But really I want to know how like chemically she is able to make 100% human cheese? that is the most interesting question… at least to me. Miriam Simun how are you making up for the lack of Beta-lactoglobulin in human breast milk to allow for coagulation of the casein, to form curd from which to make the cheese 100% human?

Suzy: I feel like this is being done more to shock people into thinking about where their food comes from and what that means, than as any serious effort to start a human-cheese production or consumption movement. It isn’t exactly a new effort, and there’s a reason few people pursue it: the product isn’t that great! I don’t find this shocking; rather, I find it light on serious analysis of the implications of food production. Why would it matter that the cooking pot was manufactured in NYC, for example? What’s “better” about “local” taken to that extreme? What’s the big deal about drinking cow’s milk and cheese, or other kinds of milk and cheese? Should that be some kind of concern to me?

Spec MaCquayde: Hey, read the piece about human cheese. My last Ex traded her own milk with some hippie friend whose own had dried up. We also co-operated a raw milk “cow share” for several years before splitting up, at which point we made up a video about the whole thing, sort of. YouTube carries it, “Boonville Milkman.” You might dig it. Keep on rockin.

Motherof5under4: Very interesting, heck I had my placenta encapsulated and ate it…I always wanted to make breastmilk soap. I like this idea!

Sarah: This is interesting my question is this: milk tends to have a flavor of whatever you ate, so that is one aspect you will never be able to control. Whereas with pasture raised dairy cows, you know what they are getting. How can you compensate for that? For now, I think I’ll stick with cow cheese. 🙂 But more power to the breast feeding moms!

Ashleebetsch: I think this woman has a wonderful idea, and if given the chance to, i would love to try it! I would even like to learn to make it if i could.

@stephgerson: ever since I made cheese, was curious abt experimenting (zebra cheese? Madonna cheese?), & I enjoyed Miriam’s human cheese but would have liked opportunity for taste comparison (vs. cow, goat, etc.) & per @noneck would re-brand e.g. as FROMage MAMA.

@misterthibodeau: This is so wrong in so many ways…All personal hang-ups. Sorry if I sound like a hater. I’m not. Lets just say I’m more in your grandfathers camp.

@rmichael: Yes, I’d try it. Not a staple tho. Reminds me of these 2 projects from IDEO colleagues: http://bit.ly/e3bkSx & http://bit.ly/euWjwd

@SkeeterNYC: Unless it was mine, I’d feel like I’d be invading personal space.

@Mikel_ee: Yes!

@johnbellone: Human cheese, ugh, that just sounds a little nasty. 🙂

@angrywayne: Yes, absolutely. Doesn’t gross me out at all.