famine: Why the aversion to cannibalism?

[Shabazz]

All joking aside...

When famine strikes, I wonder why there is such a great societal aversion to cannibalism. Is it not better to survive by eating from those who already died than to perish with them?

Take for example the French retreat from Moscow under Napoleon. The temperatures were epic brutal, reaching -40 degrees. The troops did not have food sufficient for the march home, nor could they scrounge enough from the countryside. But due to cold and exhaustion, soldiers were falling dead and quickly freezing solid. So why not choose to survive by feeding on the fallen?

Further, it is better to make the decision in advance of when you will resort to cannibalism, rather than waiting until you are so weakened by starvation that you can no longer reverse course.

Those are just my thoughts.

[Nathan_Bell]

The old aversion is based, as most such taboos, on empirical evidence that it is bad for you.
Diseases. Think about it, a cow has some bovine disease. You can still eat the critter and not end up sick because humans do not get that sickness. Now, you butcher and eat another human, who happens to have Hep B/HIV/Flu. Guess what. You now have a very good chance of having Hep B/HIV/Flu.

If you are at such extremes that eating others is looking good, it is likely you will not have the facilities to properly cook a chunk of meat to the point that you would not have to worry about disease. Think wild hog amount of cooking.

[Erik 1]

So state-sponsored health care is only the first part of the plan...

[Belmont31R]

Its a good way to pick up neurological diseases and I simply don't think its healthy to feed off the same species be it humans or farm animals. In the UK mad cow disease was spread by feeding calves rendered parts of other cows, and in New Guinea they have also had issues eating parts of other humans.

Kuru belongs to a class of infectious diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), also known as prion diseases. The hallmark of a TSE disease is misshapen protein molecules that clump together and accumulate in brain tissue. Scientists believe that misshapen prion proteins have the ability to change their shape and cause other proteins of the same type to also change shape. Other TSEs include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and fatal familial insomnia in humans, bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle (also known as mad cow disease), scrapie in sheep and goats, and chronic wasting disease in deer and elk.

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/kuru/kuru.htm

Research indicates that the first probable infections of BSE in cows occurred during the 1970's with two cases of BSE being identified in 1986. BSE possibly originated as a result of feeding cattle meat-and-bone meal that contained BSE-infected products from a spontaneously occurring case of BSE or scrapie-infected sheep products. Scrapie is a prion disease of sheep. There is strong evidence and general agreement that the outbreak was then amplified and spread throughout the United Kingdom cattle industry by feeding rendered, prion-infected, bovine meat-and-bone meal to young calves.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/



Basically, if my understanding is right, you can no longer feed animals back to each other (like using chicken parts in chicken feed) and you can't use CNS parts in feed, either. I don't think it would be good practice to be eating same species food products (especially brain and spinal tissue).

[Pork Chop]

Its a good way to pick up neurological diseases and I simply don't think its healthy to feed off the same species be it humans or farm animals. In the UK mad cow disease was spread by feeding calves rendered parts of other cows, and in New Guinea they have also had issues eating parts of other humans.






http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/kuru/kuru.htm





http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/



Basically, if my understanding is right, you can no longer feed animals back to each other (like using chicken parts in chicken feed) and you can't use CNS parts in feed, either. I don't think it would be good practice to be eating same species food products (especially brain and spinal tissue).

You are correct in your understanding of this. I'm in the transportation industry and it is forbidden to even transport a feed product in a trailer that has previously contained a product of like origins without a certified washout.

Example: transporting feed intended for cattle in a trailer that previously hauled a bovine derived ingredient


As to cannibalism, even if you put aside the risks of disease, I think it's an ethical barrier that many just couldn't cross regardless of its benefits as they relate to survival. jmo

[Moose-Knuckle]

A part from the taboo and the biological implications we still have not discussed the psychological impact, moral, and ethical ramifications.

I think if we were to see a total cratering of civilization you would see cannibalism become a social norm for the dregs of society, think The Road.

[Nathan_Bell]

Or "Lucifer's Hammer" where they used it as an initiation to hold people to the group.

A part from the taboo and the biological implications we still have not discussed the psychological impact, moral, and ethical ramifications.

I think if we were to see a total cratering of civilization you would see cannibalism become a social norm for the dregs of society, think The Road.

[SuperiorDG]

I don't think I could eat my dog, much less a fellow human being. But I guess one should never say never.

[PrarieDog]

Sounds like a great idea. try bringing yourself to do this with your recently dead son/daughter/wife or anyone you have a close relationship with as this will probably be the same people that you watch die around you. Lastly, I think the big man in the sky kind of frowns down on those sorts of things but this would just be my superstition.

[simple1]

As a rule - never eat carnivores or omnivores, herbivore only.

Now…if you could ascertain that the recently deceased was a vegan