Warning: The following post repeatedly uses the word "shit". If you are offended by this or find it not to your liking, please do not read this post. For others, please read on.
I find it funny in this day and age how shit can really be marketed as some great luxury item. Just because it passes through an animal's digestive tract gathering enzymes which change the chemical nature of what is excreted doesn't make it a magical product. I think millions of people around the world do this everyday and find nothing magical, possibly just daily relief. But thanks to the geniuses at Madison Avenue, shit can be worth a golden egg!
Bird Poop
Okay, I grew up listening to my mother telling me how she washed her face with bird poop when she was a little girl. The first time she mentioned this, I kept looking at my canary and all the poop at the bottom of the cage. Is this why we had a canary? Then she explained the bird shit came from the Nightingale bird who really was a finicky eater. Really? This in turn made the shit useable for cleansing after sterilizing.
Anyway, my mother perused the internet and mentioned here in the U.S., salons were marketing bird shit as a facial costing about $180! She was appalled because as a little girl growing up in Japan, she bought the stuff for pennies (yen) at the local drugstore. As she put it, "Marketing it as a youth infusing facial has turned nightingale shit into bullshit."
Argan Oil
The original argan oil passed through the digestive tract of a goat. This made it easier to remove the shell from the nut. Now, passing through an animal's digestive tract is optional and the oil from the rare tree makes this one of the most expensive beauty and cooking oils.
I have nothing against argan oil, in fact, I do use it to moisturize myself from head to toe. However, I am surprised that the products sold do not pass through the stomach of a goat. Knowing the journey of how this oil was originally made would create a beauty product of mythological proportions. After all, Cronus did swallow his children and Zeus had to live amongst the goats. What goats? Could they have been these goats? You decide.
Kopi Luwak
Or otherwise known as fox dung coffee. This coffee is passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet. As usual this coffee started out as a means for the poor plantation workers to get a taste of the coffee they harvested for the Dutch coffee plantation owners. Prohibited from drinking what they harvested, these workers picked up the shit of the civets and the rest became more shitty history!
Costing up to $100 a cup, Kopi Luwak is one of the rarest coffees in the world because of the method used and believe it or not there are fakes! But do not fear, there is a test to authenticate this coffee which should drive up the price even more!
I had a friend who bragged about trying this coffee and said it was the best probably because he didn't pay for it. He kissed ass a lot and I thought this coffee was appropriate.
Cooking Oil
This is more about recycled cooking oil in China. First, I have to state I have never been to China but I can say if I were to go, I would probably starve to death because I would turn into a really finicky eater.
Recently, it has been discovered that China recycles cooking oil for cooking, not some bio-diesel fuel. With this process of recycling, there could be some sewage oil mixed into it. Oh SHIT!!! I can't really linger on this subject because it leaves a bad taste in my mouth!! Just google and you will see some of the videos!
Vanilla Flavoring
Ah yes, that vanilla ice cream tastes so good especially with that strawberry syrup coating it. Or maybe that healthy vanilla yogurt is just making your dietary needs. Guess what? You are probably sucking the juice from a beaver's anal gland!
Castoreum found in the castor sacks (anal glands) of a beaver provide not only the vanilla scent in perfume, but in foods also. Yummy!! Next time, some guy tells you he is going to get some vanilla ice cream, he may be beaver hunting! (Add your joke here.)
There you have it, all the shitty stuff going on in the world of beauty and food. So, next time when you have spent the day at the spa feeling refreshed after a nice bird poop facial and argan oil moisturizing treatment, drinking your vanilla flavored civet coffee eating that egg roll fried in Chinese cooking oil, just remember all you have is just a bunch of
*South Park photos from South Park Studios: Mr. Hankey's Magical Helicrapter
