A nice and funny video about cannibalism. Have you ever wondered what’s the taste of human meat? Is it useful or harmful for our health? There’s many tribes that have a tradition of eating people – deceased family members or enemies. But how does such a tradition influence their life and health? Let’s find out.
By the way, this video already has over 400,000 views, and it appeared less than 2 days ago. It means that people are curious about this topic.
Did you know that cannibalism used to be a popular medical remedy? That's right, in the 17th century, well before Advil, Europeans would ingest ground up mummies for headaches. And human fat, blood, and bone were used to treat everything from gout to nosebleeds. Yet cannibalism is largely absent and morally frowned upon today.
But let's forget the social quagmire. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't eat people these days. For starters, we now know that human meat is a surprisingly low source of calories compared to other red meats. According to one study, human muscle contains about 1,300 calories per kilogram. That's less than beef, and nothing compared to bear and boar meat.
Now, you might think this would actually make human burgers a great low cal alternative, until you remember you're probably trying to eat humans because you're starving to death. So, low cal is the opposite of what you want, plus it's not worth taking the risk if you could help it.
It turns out, we carry some pretty nasty diseases that make 24-hour food poisoning look like the sniffles. Eat someone raw, and you risk contracting any blood-borne diseases they carry. But even if you cook the meat, it still won't always go so well for you.
Case in point are the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. The would eat the body and brain of the deceased family members out of cultural tradition. But that practice stopped after hundreds of people died in the 1950s and '60s from an otherwise rare neurological disorder which they contracted from eating infected human brains. The brain tissue contained prions, deadly misfolded proteins that form spongy holes in your brain. They survive the cooking process and, if eaten, are highly contagious.
On the legal side of things, cannibalism falls into a gray area. Oddly enough, cannibalism itself isn't illegal in the US or UK, but you probably committed some crime along the way to get that slab of meat: grave robbing, desecration of a corpse, murder and maybe all of the above.
One exception that won't put you behind bars is if you eat yourself. Yep, that's a thing. It's called autocannibalism. The most common example today, called placentophagy, is when a woman eats her placenta after giving birth. The idea is that it could raise energy levels and reduce the risk of postpartum depression by stabilizing hormones, but the science is still out on whether there's any real benefit. Regardless, this ancient practice has recently found new life in Western culture. Kim Kardashian and Alicia Silverstone have reportedly done it.
And there are numerous US companies that will grind your placenta into a powder so you could take it like any other vitamin supplement. But the CDC warns that even this cutting edge form of cannibalism is a bad idea because it could transfer a harmful bacteria from mother to child. So, if you have a hankering for human, maybe try some pork instead. After all, that's what we taste like. Oh, wait, wait, I mean according to cannibals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAY7k0DPIuU
