The Chaser Report - Would You Eat 3D-Printed Salmon?

Episode Date: October 27, 2026

3D-printed salmon is apparently really a thing. and Charles would love to prove it to those watching on YouTube, if he can only figure out how to work our snazzy new screen. And what will come first, Vladimir Putin 3d-printing himself new organs and living forever, or Charles fixing all the Bluetooth decides in the new studio?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Chaser Report live in studio. Yes, it is the feature nobody wanted whatsoever. We're here physically in the flesh. Well, and actually we got a whole lot of messages about going to video. Oh, excellent. What are people saying? Look, there's been an overwhelming response, Tom.

It's been heartening. People welcoming the new era of being able to see us. Oh, God, no, no, no, no. The complete opposite. Everyone thinks we're absolute idiots. One listener went, why the fuck would anyone want to watch a podcast

it defeats the whole purpose of podcast? Which, I'm going to say, totally agree with. I mean, we did a whole episode on that. But the industry speaks differently, Charles. And she says, I'm also going to take off my coat. This is so fucking hot. There's so many fucking lights. We're going to be professional.

No, I don't want to look professional. This is horrible. I hate it. And then our editor, our producer, Lockeland, who's now not our producer. Former producer, yeah, yeah. Said, oh, yeah, your audio quality will drop rapidly now that you've got video. Why? Because you can't edit out all the ums and urs.

But it's you. This is us raw dogging. The world needs you edited, Charles. I know. Okay, so you're going to see a lot of cutaways in. the video. You're just going to see, maybe like the thing where it fades to black repeatedly. Yeah. Like, there were a lot of F-bombs in the first part of this podcast listening to it live.

And is that not advertiser-friendly? I don't know. I think we'll find out. So if you see this and there's no F-bombs in it, that's what it will be. Today, should we stream the whole thing live? Like, rather than, should we actually be a braver. I think we should. Rather than, like, editing it up for the YouTube or whatever. I don't think streaming live is good enough.

I think what we need to do is we need to pre-streaming. Pre-stream it? Pre-stream it? Yeah, which means putting it out before it's even happened. Even recorded? Yeah. I was just thinking, like, we could just somehow put electrodes on our temples and whatever our brainwaves say that we were going to say, just put that in the stream.

Do you remember Minority Report? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was all about thought crime and pre-crime. Thought crime. Yes, before you did it. You did it before. We can do pre-podcast where we get hooked up and you can predict the podcast before it's actually

been ever done. I mean, to be fair, the podcast is quite predictable. That will work. You don't need Samantha Morton in a tub of gel to tell you. It's going to be largely whinging about Bluetooth. So, but Don, the topic of today's podcast is, it's a doozy. Yep. It's essentially about the future of eating.

The future of eating. Yeah, the future of nutrition. The future of the human race. You're not getting this on other podcasts. Hamish and Andy will not give you this. No. Even the rest is politics. Oblivious.

But also the science show. No. They're not going to cover this. That's why Robin Williams is retiring because he can't keep up. He can't say across this stuff like The Chaser Report. Can't keep up with the Chaser Report. And he doesn't want to do video very wisely. They've just released.

This is honestly true. A company in the US has just released a product range of 3D printed salmon. Salmon. Yeah, salmon. And it looks fucking awesome. Like it actually looks like, well, it looks like a perfect slice. of salmon. So it's called Stakeholder Foods, and their sub-brand is called Perfecta.

Stakeholder foods sounds so like... S-T-E-A-K, because the first thing that they did is they 3-D-printed beef steak. Okay, so stakeholder as a pun. So they started 3-D-printing salmon, and they're selling them in 1,200 supermarkets across Europe, right? and apparently it looks it looks exactly like normal salmon but unlike wildcourt or farm-raised fish these 3D printed alternatives

contain no actual seafood hormones or micro-procations. Oh so they're vegetarian-friendly? What are they made out of? Is it like the... No, it's pro-dead... Are they made out of like seafood extender times a million? No, no. How do you 3-D-print salmon?

It's the actual, like, isn't it, it's the actual substance that've managed to work out how to reproduce it. They've replicated the cells of salmon. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Well, one thing we can say is that probably is a big relief to salmon fans who are worried about that. You know all the millions of salmon that died in Tasmania? You don't get any thread-y plastics in it. So what's the point?

Oh, if it doesn't have microplastics. I'm used to taste of microplastics. I can't do it. That's what it gives it sort of, well, that's certainly the Tasmanian fans. Well, that's all the microplastics. Antibiotics. I've had to put in the water and all that kind of stuff. No. I like my salmon deoxygenated and dying for its time in what's been designated as a dead zone by a national, you know, see if...

I can't have this lab stuff. So, but apparently it tastes identical to the real thing. Like, it's so much better than the... You know how beyond and all the impossible? Oh, yeah, impossible. And they sort of proved their point that it was impossible to make good... Yeah, impossible to really... It wasn't beyond it.

it was impossible. Yeah. But it looks quite good. So you're telling me that they can manipulate fungi to produce something that tastes basically like salmon. Yes. Does this mean that I can achieve my life stream, which is to become a vegetarian so that my children don't judge me without making any change at all to my lifestyle?

Yes, yes, exactly. That's what I want to do. Yes. I want to be a vegetarian who doesn't realize I'm a vegetarian. But if you do buy this stuff, you do need to also take a little. supplement of microplastics. That's true. Maybe what we can have is little sprinkles.

Like you get a little little sashay and just sprinkle. You sprinkle. Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, did you see all the salt grinders that they sell in the supermarkets, apparently most of them have plastic. Plastic grinders. And so literally every time you grind salt onto your thing, you're actually grinding

microplastics into your food. Yeah. So just do that. Just add a bit of salt. I was avoiding salt for heart health reasons. But if there's microplastics in there, I'm on board. That's good stuff. I saw an amazing story from the Times and Sunday Times.

I'm not sure which are the two of them. The headline, this is today's, breaking news. Putin's daughter, and this is not going to be great news for supporters of Ukraine in the war, by the way. Putin's daughter is on a quest to give her father eternal life. One of Putin's daughters, her name is Maria Vorntsova. She is working on 3D printed. organs to try and help Daddy, inverted commas, cheat God. Wow.

That's what she's working on. Are they vegetarian organs? I certainly hope so. Made out of fungus, I'm not sure. Well, no, I can explain how it works. So the first thing she's doing, even though there are two steps, they're very keen to emphasize these. The first step, Putin's daughter says, well, don't drink too much exercise as

off as possible. So she's still being boring about it. Right. But then the second part is that I'll get you to 85. to 90 if you do that. But to get to 125, you need to start printing out new organs. And they're nowhere near that.

But she says within 10 to 20 years, this is what we're going to do. And it's going to use stem cells in a kind of paste that we can just use to print new organs. And in theory, this will mean that they don't get rejected. Just spit bullying here. Yep. Why not, instead of, say,

using this technology to keep sort of absolute dictator fuckwits alive, we instead use the technology to keep the best of humanity alive. I mean, I'm not sure. You got an issue with Vladimir Putin, getting extra life? Well, I kind of feel like, because this is going to be fairly expensive, I expect. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's going to be, I mean, you can just name the people who are going to jump at this technology.

He's going to be Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk. All the tech bros. You assume Elon's got his own daughter. In fact, Elon's probably bred daughters specifically to solve this for him. But why don't we get, why don't we use it to sort of, you know, that woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize and, you know, invented the ICC. You know, like did the whole Rwanda genocide inquiries. She doesn't have the money. I mean, Putin's already put, in 2024, he put 26 billion US dollars into a new tech.

Technologies for Health Preservation Project. That's a lot of money to put into Eternal life. But I suppose it's worth it, isn't it? For him, why not? Well, because the return on investment pays off like if you amortise it,

you're amortizing it across eternity. Of course. So, I mean, just, you know, from an accounting to speak about, that is a good accounting gag. It's actually less than a dollar a day. Like, if you live, if you live for, what is it, 26 billion days,

yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a dollar a day. And you don't need to amort. it because more it means death and no one's dying in this night. Oh yeah. So what they're trying to do. I'll tell you what also that means is doesn't that mean if you're got eternal life, doesn't that mean you can run up as much debt as you like?

Yes. Because you can always just keep it taking out more and more credit cards. Yeah, you can forever. Yeah. But also presumably they'll come a point where you have so many artificial organs that you'd be technically, legally, you become a different person so that all the debts die with the old body or whatever. Oh, yeah. We'll need to come up with laws around there.

But maybe, I mean, so the aim of this scheme was to save 175,000 lives by the end of the decade. And cynics have pointed out that that's not as many people, Russian soldiers that have died. But what I'm envisaging Charles is that if you've got these 3D printed organs and all this stuff going on, why not use them to reanimate the soldiers that they've lost? By which I'm saying, and we're heading into hell of them. We're talking. Bring back progosion. Zombie army.

Yes. Russia could have an endless supply. The supply of troops. Yes. Just keep putting new organs in them. The Ukrainians will take them out again. They'll come back. Just whack in a new, I don't know, heart, brain, whatever, then it, lungs.

And the wall will never end. It's a great idea. I feel like that's the plot line to that. What's it called? End of tomorrow. The one where they keep on dying and being read out. And they just lived the same day on the battlefield over and over again. And he's got to figure out how to save the way.

It's a bit like Groundhog Day. but, you know, less funny. Yes. It's if Groundhog Day was taken seriously rather than being a hilarious premise. Yeah, I mean, the point's been made, Charles, that the current life expectancy in Russia is 68 and that they might do well to focus on, you know,

lohean fruit to try and get that up a bit. But no, this is what we're doing. And in fact, Russia's health ministry sent a letter to all the researchers in 2024 saying your top priority is to try and solve death, solve ageing. Now, Dom, I think there's a good grift here.

Tell me more. Because it seems to me that you probably can't spend $26 billion very efficiently on creating eternal life. No. Like, I imagine that at least half of that would be in bunk science that doesn't really work. The other half is in, presumably, in Vladimir Putin's private coffers in some way.

Yeah, but it's got to run the research industry. It's highly speculative science. right. And I feel like that's something that we could branch into. I feel like, you know, like real science is very hard and requires a whole lot of P values and testing, clinical trials, yeah. But speculative science, where you're just literally going, let's, you know, let's do fun things to rats and stuff like that. Zombie rats. Yes. 3D printed organs for rat now. For zombie rats.

You know what we could finally have if we can manage to do that? What? Ratatooey. actually have a rat chef in all of our homes. Yes. That can cook delicious, called on Blur French meals for it. This is the best use of 3D printing. I want a 3D print ratatouille.

And now I do want to live forever. Okay, this has been the Chaser Report. With video! Please write in and complain about video so we can stop doing this stupid video thing. Podcast at jaser.com.com. Or just text Charles. Or just text me.