One Bowl of Keratin Soup, Please
My mission to find a protein
Hello earthlings! My name is Naustrien and I am a visitor from Mars. Can you help me identify an object I found on Earth? Oh, sorry. I am jumping ahead…let me give you some background.
We, the Martians, need lots and lots of Keratin in our foods. As you know, Keratin is a fibrous protein. We have been making our own Keratin-rich foods but the recent surge in our population has made that practice unsustainable. We have now started to look for other natural sources of Keratin elsewhere in the Universe. We believe we have better chances of finding Keratin sources on Earth since earthlings also need protein in their diet. And that’s how I arrived on Earth. I am here on a mission to find Keratin.
I can detect the presence of Keratin as soon as I put something in my mouth. Ever since I landed on Earth, I have been tasting everything I came across — soil, water, wood, metal, etc. But nothing satisfied my Keratin craving taste buds. Either they had no Keratin at all or they had so little Keratin that they are of no use to us. My search continued.
I took a break yesterday. I wanted to taste and experience the foods you all eat, so I visited a restaurant. I had a steaming bowl of the popular Ramen soup. As soon as I took my first sip, I realized it had a good amount of Keratin. But the soup had so many ingredients, I wasn’t sure which one was giving me the Keratin kick. I started separating the ingredients and tasting them one by one. They all had a little bit of Keratin but not quite enough. I was halfway through when I noticed a strange object floating in the soup. I carefully extracted it and put it in my mouth.
Voila! An intense Keratin kick jolted through my body. That shit was full of Keratin! But I had no clue what that object was. And that’s where I need your help in identifying it.
It was a long thin strand…black and curly. Do you know what that was?
