This Bird Poops One of the Most Expensive Coffee Varieties in the World

One of the world’s most expensive and sought-after coffee varieties is actually harvested from the droppings of the jacu, a large, black, turkey-like bird whose digestive system brings out the aroma of the coffee beans.

When Henrique Sloper, the owner of the Camocim coffee farm in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, first saw his coffee plantation overrun by jacu birds, he panicked, not knowing that the birds would soon become a sort of business partner. He called environmental protection agencies, but they didn’t know what to do and suggested that the farm introduce some natural predators for the large birds. But that was difficult to do, especially with a bird as large as the jacu, so, in the end, Sloper decided to adopt the old ‘if you can’t beat them, join them‘ mantra, and soon discovered that the bird invasion had been a blessing in disguise.

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Taiwanese Restaurant Serves Whole, Unpeeled Frog Ramen

A ramen shop in Yunlin, Taiwan is giving the phrase “exotic food” a whole new meaning with its latest dish, a ramen bowl containing an uncut, unpeeled frog.

“Frog Frog Frog Ramen” (蛙呀蛙呀蛙拉麵), the latest item on the menu of Taiwanese ramen shop Yuan Ramen (圓拉麵) recently went viral on social media because of a certain ingredient – a large, unpeeled frog perched atop the bowl of noodles. The Yulin-based shop only recently posted photos of the bizarre dish, asking fans to suggest names for it on Facebook. It also announced that the frog ramen would be available on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, in very limited quantities, for the price of NT$250 (US$8) per bowl. But if you only want to come in and take pictures of the frog ramen, you can do that for just NT$100 ($3.20).

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Man Eats McDonald’s Three Times a Day for 100 Days, Loses 60 Pounds

A 57-year-old Nashville man claims that he has managed to lose 60 lbs (27kg) of body weight by eating McDonald’s fast food three times a day for 100 days straight.

If you’re trying to lose weight, fast food is probably the first thing you cut out, but one Nashville grandfather’s dieting experiment will probably make you see things from a totally different perspective. 57-year-old Kevin Maginnis had been doing a media tour explaining how he managed to lose a considerable amount of body weight by eating McDonald’s Big Macs, quarter-pounders, french fries, and apple fritters three times a day for 100 days straight. Maginnis also claims that the unusual diet also helped him bring down his cholesterol, blood sugar, as well as his heart attack risk rating. And all he did was cut the portions he ate in half…

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Taiwanese Restaurant Serves Ramen Dish Topped With a Scary Deep-Sea Creature

A Taipei-based restaurant has been getting a lot of attention for its newest addition to the menu- a ramen dish topped with a steamed 14-legged isopod that looks like something out of an Alien movie.

The Ramen Boy restaurant recently took to Facebook to announce its latest dish, a bowl of ramen featuring a generous helping of giant isopod (Bathynomus giganteus), which it describes as a “dream ingredient”. Called “Giant isopod with creamy chicken broth ramen”, the dish consists of a large bowl of ramen and a large isopod steamed in its own shell. To prepare the deep-sea crustacean, the cooks remove the stomach viscera, keeping the creamy glands for consumption, and steam it. The white meat is said to taste like lobster and crab, while the yellow glands are “unexpectedly sweet”.

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New World’s Most Expensive Ice Cream Is Made with White Truffles, Costs $6,700

Japanese luxury ice cream brand Cellato recently set a new Guinness record for the world’s most expensive ice cream with a decadent treat priced at a whopping 880,000 yen ($6,700) per portion.

On April 25, a Guinness World Records representative certified Byakuya, Cellato’s new protein-rich ice cream, as the most expensive in the world. It consists of a velvety base made with milk, two types of cheese, egg yolks, and sake leek, and is topped with Parmigiano cheese, white truffle, truffle oil, and gold leaf. The ‘highest grade’ gelato has a faint sweetness, complex taste, and a luxurious, smooth texture. It comes packaged in a stylish black box. It includes a hand-made metal spoon created by Takeuchi craftsmen in Fushimi, Kyoto, using techniques and materials used in the construction of temples and shrines. One 130ml Byakuya ice cream is currently available on the Cellato website for 880,000 yen ($6,700).

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Article on Raw ‘Crow Sashimi’ Sparks Controversy in Japan

The Tokyo Shimbun newspaper recently sparked controversy in Japan with an article on consuming raw crow meat, a practice that experts say could cause serious health problems, even death.

Last month, the Tokyo Shimbun, one of the most-read newspapers in Japan, published an article on the consumption of so-called ‘crow sashimi’ (raw crow meat marinated in various sauces). The journalist basically described their experience eating crow meat both cooked and raw at a gathering of crow meat lovers in Ibaraki Prefecture, claiming that the crow sashimi was both refreshing and easy to chew, compared to the grilled meat which was extremely tough and dry. The article caused a lot of confusion online, and the Japanese Health Ministry ultimately posted a message on its official Twitter account warning people not to indulge in raw crow meat, as it could cost them their lives.

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This Frozen Fish Salad Was Voted the Worst Dish in the World

Indigirka Salad, a Russian fish salad that originated in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited region in the world, was recently voted the worst dish in the world by the readers of online food guide Taste Atlas.

Indigirka is a rather simple dish – it consists of diced whitefish such as broad whitefish, elma, and muksun combined with onions, and seasoned with oil, salt, and pepper. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Well, at least not so bad as other dishes we’ve featured on Oddity Central in the past. The problem with Indigirka salad is that the fish is not only raw, but frozen solid, which is to be expected from a dish born in a region where temperatures routinely drop below -70 degrees Celsius. The dish is usually served as an appetizer, accompanied by lemon wedges and a shot of vodka.

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The Bees of Easter Island Produce the Purest Honey on Earth

Isolated on an island in the middle of the southeastern Pacific Ocean, the bees of Easter Island are free of all the pathogens and pesticides ravaging the global bee population, and therefore produce the purest honey on the planet.

The beekeepers of Chile’s Easter Island are fully aware that their bees may one day become the salvation of the world’s most important polinator. With bee colonies all over the world struggling to survive serious threats like pesticide poisoning, new diseases and climate change, the bees of Easter Island are probably the only ones in the world yet to be affected by such problems. And their owners hope to keep it that way. They have managed to convince the local government to ban the importation of bees, because of the significant risk of contamination.

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That’s Nuts! Man Has Allegedly Been Eating Only Coconuts for the Last 28 Years

Balakrishnan Palayi, an Indian man from Kasaragod, claims to have eaten nothing but coconut for the last 28 years in order to treat his gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

Imagine eating only one thing for over two decades. As a foodie with access to so many delicious treats, the mere thought of restricting one’s diet to a single food for a month, let alone 28 years, sounds almost impossible, but one Indian man claims that it has kept him healthy and fit. Balakrishnan Palayi, a man from Chandera in Kasaragod, was diagnosed with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a condition that caused him to lose all his strength to the point where he could hardly move around. As part of his treatment, he started eating coconut, and he felt so much better that he soon decided it was the only thing he was going to eat moving forward.

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Sweet Mystery – North Carolina’s Bees Produce Purple Honey

The Sandhills of North Carolina is said to be the only place in the world where bees produce purple honey, an iridescent concoction that looks more like alien goo than the sweet nectar we know and love.

From the expensive yet bitter Corbezzolo Honey to the meat honey produced by vulture bees, we’ve featured some unusual types of honey here on Oddity Central over the years. However, none of them are as visually striking as the purple honey produced in North Carolina. It sounds like the stuff of legends, something to lure honey and beekeeping aficionados from around the world, but this extremely rare liquid is quite real. Purple honey is said to be sweeter than the amber kind and apparently has some subtle fruit notes as well.

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Popular Liquid Nitrogen-Infused Snacks Allegedly Cause Stomach Burns

Several kids in Indonesia have reportedly suffered stomach burns after consuming a popular liquid nitrogen-containing street snack called ‘chiki ngebul’.

Commonly known as ‘dragon’s breath’ in Indonesia, chiki ngebul is an assortment of rainbow-colored candies coated in a cloud of liquid nitrogen mist that causes the person eating them to exhale that mist, like a dragon. However, health experts warn that if the snack is consumed before the liquid nitrogen has evaporated, it poses a very real risk of intestinal burns and perforations. So far, over 20 kids have been diagnosed with stomach burns after allegedly filming themselves eating chiki ngebul as part of a dangerous TikTok trend.

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Finally! KFC Launches Fried Chicken Incense Sticks

KFC Thailand recently teamed up with several scent experts to create incense sticks that not only look edible but also smell like KFC fried chicken when lit.

Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe containing 11 herbs and spices is notoriously hard to replicate in the kitchen, let alone in insence sticks, but KFC Thailand claims to have achieved the impossible. Partnering with a number of scent and perfume experts, the Thai branch of the international fast food chain managed to come up with an incense stick formula that not only looks good enough to eat, but gives off the same aroma as KFC fried chicken when lit. The only problem is that you can’t buy these incense sticks, only win them.

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Restaurant Serves Classic Miso Ramen With a Slice of Strawberry Shortcake

A restaurant in Osaka, Japan has built a reputation for serving traditional miso ramen with an unusual twist, like a slice of strawberry shortcake.

Franken, a Japanese restaurant specializing in miso ramen, first made international news headlines last January, when it started selling a unique variant of sweet-and-sour red miso ramen with a cone of soft-serve vanilla ice cream melting in the middle of the bowl. The combination sounds offputting, but the restaurant was so confident that people would love it that it only served its red miso ramen with the ice cream cone. Well, until this month, when Franken started selling another weird dish, a miso ramen with a slice of strawberry shortcake soaking in the hearty soup.

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Taste the Emptiness – Japanese Company Launches Flavorless Candy

Japanese convenience store chain Lawson recently launched a rather intriguing new product – flavorless candy that apparently tastes like emptiness.

Whether it be sweet, sour, salty or even spicy, candy has always been associated with a type of flavor. Well, at least until now, because flavorless candy is a thing these days. Lawson, one of Japan’s largest convenience store chains is currently testing a number of products, including the aptly-named Aji no Shinai? Ame (Tasteless? Candy), which apparently tastes like nothing. As you can imagine, the marketed lack of flavor has been raising eyebrows in Japan, and for good reason, after all, can you even imagine sucking on a candy that doesn’t have any taste?

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Woman Cooks Recipes Found on Gravestones as a Hobby

A US woman recently went viral for dedicating herself to a very unusual hobby – cooking recipes etched into people’s gravestones as a unique way of remembering and celebrating their lives.

About a year ago, Rosie Grant was studying library science at the University of Maryland and interning in the archives of the Congressional Cemetery. At one point, she started a TikTok account and started sharing facts about her studies with the internet, and it was this foray into the world of cemeteries that led her to her first gravestone cooking recipe. It was for spritz cookies, featured only seven ingredients and included no instructions, but Rosie managed to use it to make something edible, and the experience just left her hungry for more gravestone recipes.

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