Update (6/24/11): Salon.com finds out that the poop burger story made headlines in the early 1990s, making this story nearly 20 years old...d'oh.

Update (6/21/11): Got some more info, thanks to this comment at cnet. The clip is taken from this 2007 French documentary, Au Nom De La Rose, either with the additional name of or part of a series called Fabuleuse Histoire des Excréments, by Mona Lisa Production. Part III is above; you can also watch part 1 and part II on Dailymotion.

So it is real...ish? I don't know French or Japanese, so if anyone wants to translate, please do. Thanks!

Update (6/20/11): More believable than a video about poop burgers is a video on why poop burgers aren't real. [sigh of relief] Sorry for leading everyone horribly astray and possibly giving you nightmares about eating poop. On that note, I still want to know where to get a pointer featuring a red nail polished-hand like in the original video (below).

Japanese scientist Mitsuyuki Ikeda of the Environmental Assessment Center in Okayama has developed a way to make artificial meat from bacteria-rich sewage mud (not straight-up poop, but there's poop in the mud) by using protein extracted from the mud. Ikeda also adds soy protein for flavor and red food coloring for...well, color. The resulting "meat" is 63% protein, 25% carbohydrates, 3% lipids, and 9% minerals. "The artificial steak, according to initial tests, even tastes like beef," says the video. (I wonder who those initial taste testers were.) But even if it tastes right, there are a few barriers to this artificial meat catching on with the public: It currently costs 10 to 20 times more than regular meat, and...oh yeah, the poop thing.

The first time I watched this video, I thought, "This isn't about making poop-based burgers; it's about making poop-based artificial meat." But then I found out, as many others have, that in the video at the 1:33 mark there's a fridge labeled "SH*T BURGER" (in Japanese, うんこバーガー). If that's what Ikeda want to call it, I'm not going to stop him. (I'd say he has to grind up the poop meat and form it into a patty to make a poop burger; otherwise he's just making a poop meat steak sandwich. Or something. ...Nevermind.)

[via Metafilter and Inhabitat]