# Is the Enterprise crew consuming human waste molecules? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2013, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318 "2013-09-08T08:58:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/21 "2013-09-08T20:35:36Z")
It has certainly sustained the franchise well enough. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/22 "2013-09-08T20:38:50Z")
I think Arthur C. Clarke once said that not even God could tell one carbon atom from another. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/23 "2013-09-08T20:42:38Z")
Kinda how I feel about science fiction writers. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/24 "2013-09-08T21:51:28Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > …Which just adds further questions – are the Earl Grey tea, the chocolate mouse, and the replicated _gagh_ instead providing complete nutrition, just with the taste, consistency and appearance of the required food?.. Yes. In one episode Troi had to pull rank and enter a command override to get the replicator to produce “real chocolate” and not the perfectly synthesised nutrient rich substitute one normally get’s when one orders chocolate. Presumably the computer is capable of keeping track of each crewmember’s physiology in order to do this. > [@levdrakon](#): > > I’ve always assumed everything gets perfectly recycled, and rather like the idea. I suppose kosher keeping Jews might have lots of debates over what molecules end up in their replicated food. > > That’s funny! IIRC didn’t **Babylon 5** have a scene where Ivanova & a rabbi were debating the kashrut status of alien foodstuffs? ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/25 "2013-09-08T22:30:49Z")
The ISS has the pee side of waste recycling already. [This article](http://www.universetoday.com/101775/an-inside-look-at-the-waterurine-recycling-system-on-the-space-station/) says the system processes 93% of the stuff it takes in (which includes urine) into drinkable water. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/26 "2013-09-08T22:49:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > IANAJ, but unless the feedstock started out as pork or eels or whatever, wouldn’t anything out of a replicator by definition be kosher, since it’s not _actually_ ham or eels or whatever other unkosher thing it’s been cobbled up by the replicator to be? > > Or do the kosher laws use the “if it looks like bacon, smells like bacon and tastes like bacon, it must be bacon” rationale? I dunno. IANAJeither. You’d think being “demolecularized” or what not would count, but sometimes for instance brand new cookware needs to be made kosher (kashered) even though it surely doesn’t actually contain any offending molecules. Seems a bit mystical, like whether the soul survives transporting, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/27 "2013-09-08T22:51:45Z")
> [@bump](#): > > IANAJ, but unless the feedstock started out as pork or eels or whatever, wouldn’t anything out of a replicator by definition be kosher, since it’s not _actually_ ham or eels or whatever other unkosher thing it’s been cobbled up by the replicator to be? > > Or do the kosher laws use the “if it looks like bacon, smells like bacon and tastes like bacon, it must be bacon” rationale? Orthodox Jews won’t even eat food that has been prepared in a kitchen that has been used for non-kosher food preparations. So, it’s not just about the molecules. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/28 "2013-09-08T22:55:13Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Atoms is atoms. At least some of the ones in your body were likely in some part of an animal, their feces, their vomit, etc at some point in the lifespan of the Earth. Get over it. You cannot “contaminate” a carbon atom. Well, carbon is the whore of organic chemistry. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/29 "2013-09-08T23:16:41Z")
Have a look… > **[When Pills Fail, This, er, Option Provides a Cure (Published 2013)](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&)** > > Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can cure some severe intestinal infections. ---
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/30 "2013-09-08T23:54:27Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Yes. In one episode Troi had to pull rank and enter a command override to get the replicator to produce “real chocolate” and not the perfectly synthesised nutrient rich substitute one normally get’s when one orders chocolate. Episode 3x08, “[The Price](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Price_%28episode%29)”, for those who are interested. I just went back and rewatched it for the first time in however many years, because why not? Has an interesting premise which it executes well, but also has a pretty much unwatchable Troi romance. Verdict: Worth watching, but keep a barf bag handy. (The chocolate bit is during the cold open, so you don’t have to watch very much if you just want the information on how the replicator works.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/31 "2013-09-09T17:47:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **levdrakon** : > > I suppose kosher keeping Jews might have lots of debates over what molecules end up in their replicated food. Believe it or not, present-day Jews have already addressed this question: If it’s ever in a form that not even a dog would eat, it ceases to be “food”, and any food origin it might have had before that point becomes irrelevant. > [@](#): > > Quoth **alphaboi867** : > > IIRC didn’t Babylon 5 have a scene where Ivanova & a rabbi were debating the kashrut status of alien foodstuffs? It’s probably an error in the episode that the rabbi didn’t know what to think of it, because this one is even more straightforward. The dish in question, “treel”, is said to be a kind of fish, and the Torah explicitly lays out which seafood is and is not kosher: If it lives in the water and has fins and scales, it is kosher, and if it lives in the water and does not have fins and scales, it’s not kosher. So Rabbi Koslov should have just asked whether treel has fins and scales. And even if Ivanova hadn’t known the answer to that question, whoever served the dish probably would have. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/32 "2013-09-10T00:57:59Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > I watched an ep of TNG the other day, (best of both worlds i think) and Picard was standing in front of his office replicator, ordering his usual ‘tea, earl grey, hot’ when the door bell went, and Picard said ‘Come!’. > > Note to self, be very careful with your use of language when standing in front of a replicator That would make an excellent Oglaf cartoon (if Oglaf were to traffic in futuristic sci-fi fantasy tropes). Troi walks into Picard’s quarters just as Picard is picking up his tea. He takes a sip and promptly spews it all over the table. He then gazes in horror at the contents of the cup. Last panel shows _Forty-five seconds earlier:_… ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/33 "2013-09-10T01:18:34Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I dunno. IANAJeither. You’d think being “demolecularized” or what not would count, but sometimes for instance brand new cookware needs to be made kosher (kashered) even though it surely doesn’t actually contain any offending molecules. Seems a bit mystical, like whether the soul survives transporting, for instance. Sure, it’s religion after all. Mystical stuff is part and parcel of the experience. My point was that if you somehow took non-living carbon compounds and whatever other inorganic elements that the replicators needed from say… a carbonaceous chondrite or some other celestial source, and _replicated_ a ham steak from it, that wouldn’t actually be “ham” in a kosher sense, would it? I mean, there was no pig involved at any step of the actual generation of the ham steak, other than having produced the original ham steak (or steaks) that were sampled/scanned into the replicator as a pattern. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/34 "2013-09-10T02:37:46Z")
Again, that’s a question that’s already addressed right now. We already have bacon-flavored things that contain no pig-derived ingredients. As I understand it, the consensus is that they’re technically allowed, but that a proper Jew ought to avoid them anyway, lest they accidentally give the wrong impression (i.e., if another Jew were to observe someone known to be devout eating what appeared to be bacon, they might be misled into believing that bacon itself is acceptable). ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/35 "2013-09-10T06:12:35Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > So, they can turn poop into Schroedinger’s cat food? Makes you wonder what kind of stuff Data fed his cat. “Computer, recycle contents of litter box. Computer, synthesize Feline Nutrient #2.” ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/36 "2013-09-10T10:03:03Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Or do the kosher laws use the “if it looks like bacon, smells like bacon and tastes like bacon, it must be bacon” rationale? Can’t be - you can get kosher fake bacon. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318/37 "2013-09-10T13:50:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Again, that’s a question that’s already addressed right now. We already have bacon-flavored things that contain no pig-derived ingredients. As I understand it, the consensus is that they’re technically allowed, but that a proper Jew ought to avoid them anyway, lest they accidentally give the wrong impression (i.e., if another Jew were to observe someone known to be devout eating what appeared to be bacon, they might be misled into believing that bacon itself is acceptable). You’d think in that day and age, most all food would be replicated and that it would be the default assumption. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-enterprise-crew-consuming-human-waste-molecules/668318.md?page=1)