Question: have you ever eaten human? is this even possible.

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  1. Ewww… No!

    But i have been challenged with the question – If it were entirely ethical to do so, would you? But I am not sure that this is possible… Firstly, how would you legally get hold of “human” and secondly how would you know it was safe?

    A horrible brain disease called “Kuru” – which causes loss of complete loss of mental and physical function and death – was spread in by cannibalism in some tribes in PNG. So I won’t be eating human any time soon!

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  2. No way! And I have no desire to do so!

    I know there are some situations where people have eaten human flesh in really dire circumstances. I’m not sure you can really every get hold of human flesh under legal circumstances. Even if you could, it isn’t really safe to eat as you could acquire a prion disease. If you’ve heard of mad cow disease, there are human forms of it called Creutzfeldt Jakob disease,a degenerative disease where the brain basically turns to mush – it turns into soft tissue and there is a loss of physical and mental function. Kuru is a similar disease – Krystal describes it below.It was found in Papuan tribes who had a tradition of eating the brains and hearts of the enemies they had killed. Both diseases are a result of prions – a kind of misfolded protein that can replicate (yes! Proteins can also cause disease!).

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  3. ah, no. As for whether it’s possible… there are places in the world where canabalism (ie eating humans) was taking place not long ago in isolated tribes, PNG for example. There was also an ifamous incident about 30-40 years ago where a rugby team were involveed in a plane crash over the Andes mountains in Sth Amrica and reportedly ate the flesh of their dead teammates to survive.

    There are some pretty nasty diseases you can get from eating human flesh, particularly if you eat the brains or spinal cord…

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Comments

  1. I have. I’ve eaten bits of skin from my lips and round my fingernails. :-p

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  2. Ewww.. but yeah – good answer! I guess some kids pick their scabs too!

    Yeah – and some people suck their thumb or fingers if they are cut and bleeding! And if you cut your lip and blood goes in your mouth!

    I guess I eat human all the time. Gross.

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  3. There are tribes that specialize in cannibalism. I believe there was a show a few years back that interviewed a Tribe Elder in one of these tribes, and he ended up telling the reporters all the best parts of mean on humans. It was definitely disturbing, but eating human meat is probably no different to eacting cattle meat; with the exception that eating people is illegal. 🙂

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