Gold Pills That Make Your Poop Sparkle Are Real

In 2005, artist Tobias Wong and the design collective Ju$t Another Rich Kid created something gloriously ridiculous: pills filled with 24-karat edible gold leaf that make your poop literally sparkle with flecks of gold. For $425, you could buy a set and transform your digestive system into what the product description called "chambers of wealth."

Yes, they were real. Yes, people bought them.

How Gold Poop Pills Actually Work

The science is surprisingly simple. Pure 24-karat gold is chemically inert, meaning your body can't absorb it or break it down. When you swallow a gold capsule, it travels through your digestive system completely unchanged. The gelatin capsule dissolves in your stomach, releasing tiny flakes of gold leaf that mix with your food and eventually exit the way nature intended—just shinier.

It's completely safe because gold doesn't react with stomach acid, enzymes, or anything else in your body. It just takes a scenic tour through your intestines and comes out the other end.

The Point (And The Joke)

Here's where it gets interesting: this wasn't just some random luxury gag gift. The gold pills were part of a collection called "Indulgences," and they were genuine art commentary on society's obsession with conspicuous consumption. Wong's work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and the Architecture Gallery in New York City.

Think about it. For $425, you could buy something that does absolutely nothing except make your waste products glitter. You can't even see the gold after you flush. It's the ultimate statement about pointless luxury—spending hundreds of dollars on something that literally goes down the toilet.

The Legacy of Luxury Poop

The pills were sold through high-end design retailer CITIZEN: Citizen before the gallery closed. Each order included three gold pills, which works out to about $142 per sparkly bowel movement. The product became weirdly iconic in the world of absurdist luxury goods.

After the original pills gained notoriety, cheaper knockoffs appeared on Etsy using gold glitter instead of real gold leaf for around $10. Sure, you don't get the cachet of consuming actual 24k gold, but your poop still sparkles, and you save $415.

The tragedy? Artist Tobias Wong died in 2010 at age 35, but his gold poop pills live on as perhaps the most perfectly absurd critique of wealth culture ever created. It's art you can swallow, digest, and flush—and somehow that makes it brilliant.