December 4, 2006: Digestive Table

It's the Neatorama/Cellar IotD weekly collaboration!



In the 'interesting art' department, artist Amy Youngs has created this table which helps you to digest your food. But not exactly in the way you might suspect.



In the center of the table is actually a composting bag filled with a mix of worms and bacteria. You put your scraps into it, and they are digested, creating a rich mix of compost and worm castings which eventually come out the bottom of the cone. To make the point of it, the houseplants around the base can benefit from this compost.



But that's not all! The eater can enjoy the composting process by watching it on the built-in monitor, which shows the action via an infrared camera.

You should visit Amy Youngs' website to appreciate the considerable amount of thought that has gone into this. Be sure to click through and check out the other cool works as well.

And be sure to visit Neatorama for more neato items!

But that's not all! The eater can enjoy the composting process by watching it on the built-in monitor, which shows the action through a built-in infrared camera.

Watching food compost, an interesting new addition to my list of things I'd rather not spend my time doing:rolleyes:

Yuck. I do not want to be that close to worms and bacteria EVER but especially when I am eating.



Ugh. I'm nauseous. :greenface

Brianna wrote:

Ugh. I'm nauseous. :greenface

Here, have a digestive tablet.

Mmmmmm... "worm castings"

After eating at this table, you go make your own castings.

And for dessert, you can watch the fertilizer manufacturing process on web cam from your local farm.

Amy was always different than her siblings..... classmates...... peers...... humans... :rolleyes:

Brianna wrote:

Yuck. I do not want to be that close to worms and bacteria EVER but especially when I am eating.



Ugh. I'm nauseous. :greenface

Those bacteria are already in your stomach, so you are as close as you're gonna get every time you eat...:3_eyes:

While I can't imagine watching composting food scraps at the dining table, my kitchen is compost friendly. In fact I can't remember the last time we used the garbage disposal. In my kitchen at the back of my sink I have a large 12 qt bowl fitted with an old wok lid. Into the bowl goes every kind of vegetable or fruit peeling or cut off bits, flower trimings, stale bread and even old dried up bits of cheese. Once and awhile I've seen a few fruit flies in the summer but it doesn't smell or attract any other critters. Every few days it is taken out to the compost pen next to my vegetable garden which also gets a steady supply of grass clippings, leaves and other garden waste.

In the spring I undo one side of the compost pen and rake it all into the vegetable garden which is then tilled and planted.

I consider this a form of carbon credit to make up for the fact I'm still driving a car with pretty bad gas mileage!:D

Dinner and poop=no.
This is why people don't like hippies.

chrisinhouston wrote:

--snip-- and even old dried up bits of cheese.--snip.

Hold the cheese, please. No dairy at all is best.

Plus, no cheeze should ever be discarded. Those dry, brittle, unchewable bits, cook up nicely in a sorts of dishes. :D

Carbon credit!! Excellent!
Love that one chrisinhouston! :)

I want to see the other table art... The one with the toilet and the camera..

Hmmm what shall we call it?:Flush::yum:

A Poo Table, of course. :D

Notice there is no "l" in it.

Hmmm. That doesn't work quite as well.

milkfish wrote:

Here, have a digestive tablet.

"Contains Pancreatin, Ox Bile, Pepsin, Glutamic Acid HCL, Lipase, and Cellulase."

YUMMY.

Oh baby! One can't get enough Ox Bile..

So do they make the ox(en) put their hooves down their throats to produce the bile?

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

A Poo Table, of course. :D

:p

Shawnee123 wrote:

So do they make the ox(en) put their hooves down their throats to produce the bile?

No. It's actually a very cruel procedure.
They put the oxen into a pen, and then parade past other oxen with shinier horns, swishier tails and bigger browner eyes. They then collect the tidal wave of bile in huge troughs.

Sundae Girl wrote:

No. It's actually a very cruel procedure.
They put the oxen into a pen, and then parade past other oxen with shinier horns, swishier tails and bigger browner eyes. They then collect the tidal wave of bile in huge troughs.

Oh the HUMANITY!

You'll be wanting as much ox bile as you can handle when you try to down one of those enormous burgers we had on here previously. (Unless you cheat and stuff most of down the middle of the table.)

But one would expect that ox bile is specificaly designed to not help you digest beef.

But that's the problem - the Mad Cow thing was perpetuated by feeding beef by-products to cattle. So they must be able to do it somehow.

And who wants to be the guy who has to obtain crocodile bile? Not I.

SPUCK wrote:

I want to see the other table art... The one with the toilet and the camera..

Hmmm what shall we call it?:Flush::yum:

A poo with a view?

Now, see.....I was expecting, and hoping, to see a table made from a giant digestive biscuit.

I'll stick with watching paint dry, thanks.

Ah so no reeeeal patience huh?

hats off for his sheer ingenuity !...