If there were no societal or cultural pressures to not eat human meat, would it even be good? We’re not talking about taste and texture, but rather health and nutrition. Perhaps craving a slice of a particularly delicious-looking friend, AsapSCIENCE decided to tackle the issue in less than four minutes.
As the video explains, based on anthropological evidence, our ancient ancestors had a taste for thighs and tongues, as well as bone marrow, though in more recent times it would be, uh, rather unorthodox to chow down on someone else’s innards.
Aside from nutritional issues, diseases and viruses are a big problem. Munching down on someone infected with ebola, for example, would be bad and you’d have to take a lot of precautions with storage and preparation. Then there’s those pesky prions:
Though not fully understood, prions are versions of a normal protein that has had its shape altered and not only loses its function, but becomes infectious. These distorted proteins can influence other proteins and change them as well, causing a chain reaction and creating disease.
So, even if you do your best in terms of finding a clean morsel, you might just be killing yourself anyway, albeit more slowly.
The conclusion? Don’t go eating humans, stick to the beef and pork that you’re used to. It’s way safer (and less gross).
[YouTube]