Edible gold: Replicating the world's most expensive foods at home

There’s some outrageously expensive food out there — there’s a $1,000 bagel, a $40 piece of bacon and a $1,600 chocolate bar just in New York alone.

What do all of these menu items have in common? They all include edible 24 karat gold, which is actually not that hard to get ahold of.

We bought some sheets of edible gold off of Amazon so that we could properly investigate whether it makes food and drinks taste good enough that it’s worth hiking up the price.

Ultimately, what we want to answer is: Is edible gold really worth its weight… in gold? (Sorry.)

What food will we put edible gold on?

We want to add gold to cheap, already-delicious foods to see if it makes enough of a difference to hike up the price.

Our lineup:

Takeout sushi: Regular cost is less than $8, compared to Japan’s $100 gold sushi.
McDonald’s cheeseburger: Regular cost is around $5, compared to a $66 gold burger found in Australia.
Bodega coffee: Regular cost is $2, compared to a New York coffee shop’s $18 coffee sprinkled with gold flakes.

Does adding gold really make these foods that much more elite? We’ll see.

What happens after we add edible gold to cheap food?

I tried the bodega coffee first and couldn’t taste any difference. I don’t know if this New York coffee shop adds in unicorn blood or magic or what, but I have a hard time believing that a sprinkle of gold leaf warrants an $18 cup of coffee.

I came into the same issue with the cheeseburger. The application was super easy — a good tip should you want your guests to think you’re rich — but it really didn’t make much of a difference in terms of taste. The downside of adding gold to the cheeseburger was that sometimes it would get stuck on my teeth and lips. Kind of a brag, but not something I wanted to deal with.

Finally, takeout sushi. While the gold added nothing taste-wise, I will admit that it made the $8 sushi look a lot more expensive and flashy. Unlike the cheeseburger, the sushi pieces were small enough to eat in one bite, so I avoided gold on my lips and teeth this time around.

Is edible gold worth it?

Absolutely not. It doesn’t add anything valuable to the taste of these foods; thus, I don’t think the expensive prices make sense. Sure, it’s a great Instagram photo opportunity, but at what cost?