— OPINION —
My father is a coffee enthusiast.
For his birthday, I wanted to find him something he had never tried before. That sent me searching through specialty coffee websites looking for a unique gift.
Then I found it. Coffee made from animal droppings.
Naturally, I bought it immediately.
The coffee was Kopi Luwak, a famous Indonesian brew made from beans that have been eaten, digested and excreted by Asian palm civets. It sounded ridiculous. It sounded disgusting. It also sounded exactly like the kind of thing my dad would love to try.
But as a writer for Food Safety News, another question quickly followed:
Did I just buy my father something dangerous?
I didn’t know, so I started digging into the science.
While researching the coffee, I came across a scene from the 2007 film The Bucket List. In the movie, Jack Nicholson’s character proudly drinks his favorite expensive coffee until Morgan Freeman’s character reveals where it comes from: beans that have passed through the digestive tract of a civet. Nicholson’s horrified reaction is played for laughs, but it captures why foods like Kopi Luwak fascinate people. They challenge our instincts about what is edible and what is safe.
And that’s where food safety gets interesting.
The world’s most famous poop coffee
Kopi Luwak is often marketed as one of the world’s most expensive coffees, with some varieties selling for hundreds of dollars per pound.
The process begins when civets eat ripe coffee cherries. As the fruit passes through the animal’s digestive system, enzymes and microbes alter the beans, breaking down proteins associated with bitterness and changing flavor compounds. After the beans are excreted, producers collect, wash, dry and roast them.
At first glance, the process sounds like a recipe for contamination.
Yet scientific studies suggest properly processed Kopi Luwak is not inherently dangerous. Available studies of commercially prepared beans have found very low levels of pathogenic bacteria after cleaning and roasting. While animal feces can certainly contain harmful microorganisms, the processing steps dramatically reduce those risks.
The beans are washed, dried and roasted at temperatures that destroy most bacteria. In food safety terms, the roasting process serves as a kill step, much like cooking meat or pasteurizing milk. The result is a product that sounds alarming but carries risks similar to many other specialty coffees.
In other words, the fact that the beans once passed through an animal’s digestive tract does not automatically make them unsafe.
That distinction is important because food safety isn’t determined by what seems gross. It’s determined by hazards, controls and processing.
Elephant coffee follows a similar path
A related product, Black Ivory Coffee from Thailand, uses elephants instead of civets.
Elephants consume Arabica coffee cherries, and the beans are later recovered from their dung. During digestion, microbes and enzymes alter the beans’ chemistry, producing a coffee known for its smooth flavor and low bitterness.
The same food safety principles apply. The beans are thoroughly cleaned, processed and roasted before consumption. Research suggests the digestive process contributes to flavor development, while proper post-harvest handling minimizes microbial risks.
The result is another product that sounds unusual but generally poses little documented food safety risk when produced correctly.
I briefly considered buying some for my dad as well. Then I saw the price. At more than $1,000 per kilogram, I decided one animal-digested coffee experiment was enough for a single birthday.
Then there’s the maggot cheese
If poop coffee sounds strange, Sardinia’s Casu Marzu may be even harder for many consumers to stomach.
The traditional sheep’s milk cheese is intentionally colonized by the larvae of the cheese fly Piophila casei. As the maggots feed, they break down fats and proteins, transforming the cheese into an exceptionally soft and pungent product.
The sight of live larvae wriggling through cheese is enough to make many people swear off dairy forever.
Poop coffee was one thing. Maggot cheese was where I found my personal line.
Unlike Kopi Luwak, however, there are legitimate safety concerns associated with Casu Marzu.
The larvae can theoretically survive passage through the stomach and cause a rare condition known as pseudomyiasis. Unregulated production can also increase the risk of bacterial contamination. Commercial sales are prohibited in Italy, although the cheese continues to be consumed informally and remains an important part of Sardinian food culture.
Even so, the product’s reputation as “the world’s most dangerous cheese” often exceeds the available evidence. Serious illnesses linked to traditional Casu Marzu are rare.
When dangerous foods become safe
Many traditional foods depend on processes that initially seem counterintuitive.
Sweden’s Surströmming uses fermentation to preserve herring.
Iceland’s Hákarl relies on months of curing and fermentation to render Greenland shark edible.
Japanese fugu contains tetrodotoxin, one of the most potent natural toxins known, yet licensed chefs prepare it safely every day.
In each case, careful processing transforms a potentially hazardous product into something that can be safely consumed.
The principle is the same one that underlies modern food safety systems: identify the hazard and control it.
Gross doesn’t equal dangerous
One of the most persistent misconceptions in food safety is that disgust and danger are the same thing.
I understand the instinct. My first reaction to poop coffee wasn’t curiosity. It was, “Absolutely not.” I knew my dad would feel differently.
But disgust and danger are not the same thing.
Many foods people consider revolting are relatively low risk when produced properly. Fermentation, microbial activity and even digestion can transform foods and help control hazards. Meanwhile, some foods that appear perfectly ordinary can cause serious illness.
A bagged salad contaminated with E. coli looks no different from a safe one. A jar of peanut butter contaminated with Salmonella appears perfectly normal. Raw milk can look cleaner than some drinking water while carrying significantly greater microbial risks.
The lesson from poop coffee and maggot cheese is not that everything strange is safe. It’s that our instincts are often poor judges of actual risk.
Food safety isn’t determined by what disgusts us. It’s determined by science.
So how was the coffee?
My dad loved it.
Asked for his review, he didn’t hesitate.
“One of the smoothest coffees I’ve had. It has a very pleasant earthy tone. The elements are more complex, but not overwhelming. Feels very balanced and even. A lovely coffee for sipping. Sits right on the back of your tongue. Reminds me a bit of Turkish coffee. Excellent sipping coffee.”
He finished the bag long before I finished researching it.
Sometimes “gross” is just gross.