logoalt Hacker News

Making chicken transparent using Dorito dust

177 points • by crescit_eundo • today at 1:55 PM • 50 comments • view on HN

Comments

waltbosz • today at 2:43 PM

I'm trying to imagine the origin story for this science, and I feel like the most fun one is that somebody wanted to make Doritos flavored chicken and accidentally discovered that the marinade turned the chicken breast transparent.

➕ show 1 reply
masfuerte • today at 4:10 PM

Author notes the difficulty of cutting thin slices of raw chicken. If you lightly freeze it (or freeze it and let it nearly defrost) it's much easier.

iandanforth • today at 4:31 PM

Translucent is a great word. Let's use it more!

➕ show 2 replies
layer8 • today at 3:42 PM

Fun fact: Doritos don’t contain tartrazine in Europe (including the UK). It’s not banned, but food products containing it must be labelled with “may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children” in the EU.

➕ show 1 reply
ricardobeat • today at 2:56 PM

How about a sous vide bath? Could go as long as 72 hours before it turns into complete mush.

_Microft • today at 4:02 PM

As the author seems to be around: have you considered surface roughness of the sample as problem to transparency?

Add some water between the grid pattern and the chicken and also some on top of it - or even conduct the experiment under water and the results should be better. You might also freeze the meat before cutting to achieve much smoother surfaces in the first place?

JSR_FDED • today at 3:10 PM

This is a lighthearted topic and a well-written article.

But what it reveals about our relationship with food is a little unsettling. The intensely chemical nature of Doritos and the whole notion of turning flesh into something alien - it’s all very far removed from food as a source of nourishment and of natural origin.

➕ show 3 replies
comrade1234 • today at 2:33 PM

I once found a Cheeto-shaped thing in a Cheetos bag that was nothing but Cheeto-coating. It was wonderful. Can't imagine what it did to my insides.

➕ show 3 replies
theapadayo • today at 4:33 PM

This headline could literally be a NileRed video.

➕ show 2 replies
deadbabe • today at 5:42 PM

I had this dream once where we invented a type of tattoo that would make your skin transparent so you could see muscle and veins underneath. I think it could still happen.

rdmuser • today at 3:22 PM

I wonder what the altered chicken would look like after being cooked vs normal chicken.

➕ show 1 reply
dghughes • today at 3:02 PM

What does it do to people? Do I get a transparent anus if I eat a family size bag of Doritos?

➕ show 1 reply
mbStavola • today at 2:26 PM

This is why we must fund the sciences. How else would we get transparent Dorito tendies?

greyface- • today at 3:20 PM

See also:

I made transparent chicken - MrGreenGuy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2H31RzTPoU

rasengan • today at 3:50 PM

They used to say Yellow 5 was really bad for males... and it used to specifically say "Yellow 5" in the ingredients. First time I heard it called "Tartrazine!"

bawana • today at 3:34 PM

so making a sucrose solution should also have the same effect?

➕ show 1 reply
mock-possum • today at 3:58 PM

Making very tiny thin slices of chicken very slightly transparent using *the dye most commonly found in dorito dust

I mean this is fun, but let’s be honest, they didn’t exactly crush up a bunch of Doritos, shake chicken breast in the dust, and create some sort of clear chicken meat

laybak • today at 3:21 PM

enjoyed the article. this was both fascinating from a technical perspective, and repulsive from a food perspective

serf • today at 5:44 PM

seeing the essentially un-cleanable calipers touching raw chicken irks me to hell, even if it is a cheapy pair.

aizk • today at 3:26 PM

As the zoomers say these days "Unstoppable scroll vs unskippable title"

➕ show 2 replies