Do you know what really lurks between your toes?
“Belly buttons have lint, Ears have wax, and Toes have jam.”
Do you want to hear something disgusting? If you’re not prone to queasiness, go ahead and read this column.
I read an article a while ago that bore this headline: “Cheese made from human toe jam, belly-button bacteria.” Yup, that’s right; that’s what it said, and that was what it was truly about! I hadn’t heard the expression “toe jam” in 50 years!
And that’s not all. The subhead for the article said: “Read about artisanal cheeses crafted by scientists from the nose, toe, mouth, and belly-button bacteria of notable people.”
So first of all, I had to look up the definition of “artisanal.” I know what an artisan is, but I’d never heard of artisanal cheese.
Dictionary.com says this, second definition: “pertaining to or noting a high-quality or distinctive product made in small quantities, usually by hand or using traditional methods: artisanal cheese; artisanal cheesemakers.”
So there you are; right there in the definition is the term “artisanal cheese.”
Knowing the definition, I went on to read the rest of the article.
It seems that two young women, Christina Agapakis and Sissel Tolaas, got together for a special project that they say “combines art and synthetic biology.” Agapakis, a biologist currently finishing her post-doctoral studies at UCLA, was interested in cultivating discussion around how we interact with bacteria in our daily lives. Tolaas is an artist who works extensively with odors and describes herself as a “scent specialist.”
Tolaas hoped to “challenge the notion that ‘bad’ smells should be deodorized,” and Agapakis was quoted as saying, “People have a mixture of repulsion and attraction to cheese, and this gives us a chance to have a really interesting conversation about bacteria and odors, and why they might gross people out.”
So, they collected bacteria samples from famous donors and used them to create some unique “cheeses” for each person. Some of the subjects contributed tears, nose debris, belly button bacteria, spittle, and—yes—toe jam.
Agapakis said the cheeses smell and taste like the body odors of the people the bacteria came from. Are you kidding me?
Do you want to try human-body-odor cheese? I spend time in the shower every day trying to get rid of my body odor.
Agapakis contends that what makes a truly fine Bleu cheese so spectacular is partly due to particular kinds of bacteria that are encouraged to grow on it. So, imagine if those bacteria came from someplace unusual, like your belly button or from between your toes.
The sampled microbes they collected were allowed to grow on various cheese rinds, generating some very different cheeses. Yup, that’s right: you get human-flavored cheese.
Are you ready for lunch yet?
Eating the coagulated lactations of other animals is one of humanity’s stranger habits. We relish stuff like Bleu cheese, Roquefort, Stilton and Gorgonzola. But rest assured that cheese derived from cow’s, goat’s and sheep’s milk has nothing on this.
Agapakis and Tolaas are hoping to show how little difference there is between bacteria on the human body, which we are constantly trying to wipe out with cleaning products, and bacteria in the cheese we eat all the time.
If you could make a cheese from any famous person’s belly-button bacteria, who would you choose?
Toward the end of the article, I found this statement: “The two used swabs to collect the bacteria which they then grew in petri dishes. From there, each sample was added to milk in order to create the cheese. Although each of the cheeses carries a unique bacterial signature from its human donor, Agapakis says you wouldn’t know it from taking a sniff.”
“Each one smells different, but I don’t think the smells mimic the odor of the person,” she says.
And those considering a nibble might want to think twice.
“I’m not a professional cheese-maker, so there is a health risk there,” Agapakis notes. “These aren’t for human consumption.”
Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that!
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