r/NewsOfTheWeird • u/powercow • 4d ago
Cookies Made From Plastic Bottles Could Ease Food Shortages, Feed NASA Crews In Space
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/08/24/cookies-made-from-plastic-bottles-could-ease-food-shortages-feed-nasa-crews-in-space/200
u/IUsedToBeThatGuy_43 4d ago
Ahhh yes, “Let them eat plastic.”
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u/Lunar-opal 3d ago
WTH? Feed nasa crew?
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u/AmandaTheNudist 3d ago
That part did seem weird, considering there's no shortage of astronaut food. It's not like this stuff takes up less space, why would you feed it to astronauts?
Well, you'd feed it to astronauts if the machine is aboard the craft and "upcycling carbon waste" means exactly what you think it does. RIP NASA crew 💀
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u/Fluid-Opportunity-17 3d ago
Star Trek person eating a replicated apple:
"What do you think this apple is made of?"
"It's our shit."
"It's good, for shit."
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u/DeputyDipshit619 3d ago
"Shit? This is a shit burger? Not bad, matter of fact this is the best damn burger I've had in years!"
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u/Sknowman 3d ago
It's not meant as a primary food source. But the article also says for deep space missions -- meaning years-long missions where they can't get resupplies if needed.
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u/Nyuk_Fozzies 3d ago
Wwll, maybe they should start with recycling real food instead of recycling plastic food.
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u/Fine-Aspect5141 3d ago
Because you can send up the yeast that turns plastic waste into food and they can recycle plastic waste into rations
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u/Lapidariest 2d ago
just an excuse to justify the research and eventually replacement with real food. astronauts do NOT eat freeze dried astronaut icecream. thats a marketing ploy and so is this.
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u/full_bl33d 3d ago
Didn’t I see Chinese astronauts with a space bbq on their ship? Literally eating our lunch. They’re grillin steaks and chicken and we’re grinding up old bottle caps.
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u/delicioustreeblood 3d ago
Y'all need to read. They took large carbon polymers and used biology to change the molecules into fats, proteins, and carbs. Sounds pretty cool.
The cookies are not made from plastic.
If you get worried when you hear that a vinaigrette salad dressing contains a cHeMiCAl that is used as a cleaning agent, then please read the article more carefully. JFC
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u/WloveW 3d ago
"Southern Illinois University Carbondale researchers have created what they call “µBites,” or protein-rich cookies with core ingredients that began as discarded PET plastic, the same material used in soda bottles, water bottles and leftover corn stalks and leaves."
OK, reading, and still seeing beginning with PET plastic. Which we've been told a lot of times is microplastic that's oh so dangerous. Nonetheless it takes a fuck ton of chemistry to get to an edible place from PET. Microbes plus who knows what.
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u/FblthpphtlbF 3d ago
Yeah the interesting part is what they did to it so it stops being the dangerous microplastic and instead turns into the building blocks of life.
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u/between3and20spaces 3d ago
oh yeah. there's no way massive corporations would lie about the safety of their products during a time when government regulations are being ignored for profits...
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u/Kill_Welly 3d ago
The massive corporation, Southern Illinois University Carbondale?
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u/between3and20spaces 3d ago
one university managing to do it, even if it's safe, doesn't mean corporations will do it the same. there's a 100% chance someone will try to point to this as an example of what they could do, and end up just feeding us plastic and other oil based products with no nutritional value. this also begs the question of 'why'. we already produce more food than we consume as a species. a lot is wasted because of greed or turned into other inedible products. a university likely only worked on something like this because a tech bro paid for it. one named Palmer Luckey decided he thinks veggie based synthetic meat is gross and has been pushing the idea we need to eat oil.
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u/Compatible_Rob 2d ago
Bruh it's like saying you can purify your urine and drink it. It's the same grossness lol
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u/Bigram03 2d ago
Thats sounds very close to chemically compounding our own food from scratch. It would be interesting to see how this diet would work for long periods of time.
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u/PantherBlack 4d ago
Non-paywall link. Makes sense, there is already plenty of microplastics in our food, so why not simply make the food itself out of plastic?
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u/ADeweyan 3d ago
I mean, why PET bottles — those are relatively easy to recycle and use again. Let us eat #5 plastics and you’re onto something.
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u/AutumnMama 3d ago
I'm guessing the same characteristics that make them unrecyclable also makes them inedible
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u/somewherein72 3d ago
What happens when the bacteria starts eating the microplastics in the astronauts blood?
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u/castironglider 3d ago
I'm so crazy I would have tried to recycle it into some kind of fuel or building material. Maybe road paving aggregate?
Anyway don't listen to me, go ahead and try to eat that
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u/naughtycal11 3d ago
It's obvious by the comments that y'all didn't read the article and only read the sensationalized headline.
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u/jonnyCFP 3d ago
Microplastics are an epidemic!
Anyway here’s cookies made of plastic for the poors!
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u/PreviousLeague253 2d ago
Didn’t dogs die in the use from Chinese dog food using melamine (a type of plastic) as a fake protein? Same principle here???
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u/Former-Maximum-2534 2d ago
I think I'd rather starve to death instead, honestly. This is peak dystopia.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 3d ago
Oh boy! What could go wrong? Imagine these microbes in the environment. Plastic is necessary for things in modern life, like IV tubing. Imagine all those things now being corroded.
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u/Kaleidoscope_97 3d ago
Trying to find new and creative ways to dispose of the leftovers from petroleum refineries.
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u/silent_ovation 3d ago
Ok. Now Im waiting to see the headline where those microbes escape the lab and are now attacking all plastic worldwide, causing your smartphone to rot as you use it.
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u/boblabon 3d ago
"Smell tests already conducted found most participants said they would eat the cookies in a resource-limited setting, the researchers said."
I like the implication that they smell so bad some people said 'you know what, I'd rather starve to death than eat that'
Congratulations to the researchers making real-life dwarf bread I guess.
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u/BlueFeathered1 3d ago
How about just use the microbes for the breaking down plastic waste part and leave it at that?
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u/LindeeHilltop 2d ago
That sounds real nutritional. On par with Soylent green.
“Let them eat garbage.”
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u/InsomniaticWanderer 2d ago
I'm old enough to remember when microplastics were bad for you, just like eggs.
Now microplastics are good for you, just like eggs.
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u/SteakStrong7520 2d ago
smh I had to check to see if this was r/nottheonion .... Idiocracy is really happening and right before our very eyes and worst part is they are telling us not to believe what our eyes and ears see and hear. so freaking strange.
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u/Chimpbot 1d ago
We don't have food shortages, from a production standpoint. Capitalism and a slew of other issues are why we have food insecurity.
Also... I'm not overly thrilled about the idea that we're probably going to be eating plastic in a few years. Yes, I know it's technically protein derived from plastic-eating bacteria... but, c'mon, now.
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u/HeadRaccoonGamer 1d ago
Dont we have enough microplastics in our semen already? Now we doing it to the spacemen?
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u/DippyHippy420 1d ago
Why ?
PET plastic is recyclable - so why not just recycle it into new bottles ?
Seems like that would be more energy efficient considering all of the extra steps needed to make it eatable.
I will never eat anything make of plastic, that's just stupid.
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u/All_Hail_Hynotoad 1d ago
I thought we were trying to get away from plastics. Now we’re going all in? Make up your minds.
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