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A comment on London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’. Parent comment

Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by madaxe_again on Monday February 05, 2018 @07:08AM (#16308283)
Fat doesn't decompose very readily - which is why it's commonly used to seal jars of meat products like terrine and pâté.

In anaerobic conditions, you get hydrolysis of fat, in which the water content is removed and the fats end up saturated and indigestible further by anaerobic processes. Cf. Corpse Wax.

In aerobic conditions, they'll be broken down into aldehydes and ketones.

I'm guessing that the interior of a monstrous fatberg is rather anaerobic, so you just end up with a great big blob of saturated fatty acids.

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Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by bane on Monday February 05, 2018 @08:32AM (#16308612)
It's actually been used as a way to preserve food in the past, often as a kind of watertight plug or seal to keep food from going bad.

Here's a great example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKzWQOVET4

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Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by gambiting on Monday February 05, 2018 @08:02AM (#16308482)
Fat is such a fantastic store of energy I am really surprised nothing evolved to eat it in this form.
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Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by deadbunny on Monday February 05, 2018 @09:35AM (#16308947)
I see you've never been to Scotland.
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Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by Graham24 on Monday February 05, 2018 @11:29AM (#16309832)
ouch!
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Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by merpnderp on Monday February 05, 2018 @11:09AM (#16309654)
Given the recent Lancet study on the healthfulness of high fat diets, maybe these could be recycled for food.
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Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by MertsA on Monday February 05, 2018 @11:49AM (#16309985)
The Chinese have quite the problem with exactly that. Eating something pulled out of a sewer tends to have health effects and gutter oil is sometimes made from grease from a sewer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil

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Re:London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’ by KozmoNau7 on Monday February 05, 2018 @01:17PM (#16310705)
The depths of human depravity know no bounds.
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