# Does human flesh really taste like pork? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414 "2003-03-06T03:51:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/21 "2003-03-06T19:54:12Z")
I have ONE account in an old book of mine that had a section on the “Alive” crash survivors…one of them said that human flesh tasted a little like beef. I’m STILL trying to find corroboration for that, though. And a good call by **Bippy the Beardless** on comparing the taste of placenta. Another thought, though…has anyone here ever eaten a monkey, or any other type of primate? The taste might be similar (Aside form differences in seasoning, and the animal’s diet, of course). ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/22 "2003-03-06T20:17:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bippy the Beardless \* > \*\*What do the people who practice placenta eating say the placenta tastes like? \*\* Not really answering the question, but apparently placenta smells a bit like liver as it’s being prepared. See Cecil’s column [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_104.html) for more information on placenta-eating. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/23 "2003-03-06T20:28:38Z")
Placenta isn’t muscle, is it? I wouldn’t think it’d taste like meat. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/24 "2003-03-06T20:34:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > \*\*The second-hand accounts I’ve heard all said it tastes like chicken. \*\* So what? Everything tastes, more or less, like chicken. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Rob\_V](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Rob\_V](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rob_V)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/25 "2003-03-06T21:55:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Enola Straight \* > \*\*Hijack; > > If pig meat is pork, and cow meat is beef, and deer meat is venison, what is man meat called? \*\* Hmmmm… The NEW White Meat? :eek: (Sorry, couldn’t resist!) ---
**Author:** ![booka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@booka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booka)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/26 "2003-03-06T22:21:26Z")
All this talk about placenta has got me in a placenta-eatin’ mood. Is there such a thing as placental sushi? Little cakes of cruelty-free sticky-rice, sprinkled with organic tamari, upon which is laid the most delicate slice of the “belly” of the placental mass, arranged in a whimsical curl of wonder. Finished with toasted sesame seeds, of course. See what I mean! It’s what’s fer dinner. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/27 "2003-03-06T23:13:00Z")
I think if you check out the OP’s username, it’s Brains for dinner tonight. And since the lady in the next office is way, way, pregnant I really don’t want to think about placental sushi. Cheers, Bippy ---
**Author:** ![rhinostylee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc79bd/32.png) [@rhinostylee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhinostylee)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/28 "2003-03-06T23:27:19Z")
I just got done reading the book “Alive”. They ate the human meat mostly raw, since they didn’t have enough fuel to have cooking fires every day, and because they didn’t want to cook away any possible nutirents since they had a limited supply. So they commented on how repulsed they all were by the smell and taste, but I guess that eating raw anything is not all that appealing. They did cook human flesh one or two times, and said that it was more better tasting when cooked (imagine that), but I can’t remeber a single instance of them describing what it tastes like (ie. like chicken.) Also, I must comment that the book covers every detail of the cannibalism, from how the intestines tasted salty and how they had to sqeeze the excrememtn out of them first . . . it seriously makes you almost puke because it chronicles several weeks/months (can’t remember exactly how long) of cannibalism. Great book, though! ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/29 "2003-03-06T23:56:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Davebear \* > \*\*According to many second-hand accounts, yes. I’ve never seen a first-hand account. \*\* Why would the first hand taste any different from the second hand? ---
**Author:** ![ProjectOmega](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b487fb/32.png) [@ProjectOmega](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProjectOmega)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/30 "2003-03-07T00:45:29Z")
I don’t know how it would taste, but ever smell burning human flesh? Smells a lot like slightly-off burning hot dogs. I’d imagine it would taste somewhat the same. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/31 "2003-03-07T02:04:10Z")
Guys, according to _Soylant Green_, soylant green is made from people. That’s why only the rich and priviledged were able to get it. The “green” part of the name was deliberately misleading. Unless I’ve had all wrong all these years. And, ftr, humans gotta taste pretty good, you know? Top of the food chain and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/32 "2003-03-07T02:51:48Z")
Well, animals are generally `flavored’ to some extent by what they’ve eaten. Deer that have been infesting some farmer’s cornfield taste better than deer who’ve been roughing it on acorns and grass, for example, and the Japanese will pay a lot of money for steak from cattle that drank high-quality beer. So I suppose exactly what a human tastes like would depend on where the human lived and what his or her diet was. BTW, starving animals are generally tough, stringy, and not very good for food. I’m not surprised that the people who crashed in the Andes didn’t much care for their two-legged vension. Which makes me wonder: How does McDonald’s food and twinkies flavor meat? All of that fat and simple sugar should increase the meat’s fattiness, which generally leads to tender, good-tasting meat. But would there be secondary tastes associated with the heavily-processed products and the preservatives? Hmm. Did Jeffrey Dahmer ever comment on the topic? If anyone would know how a 20th Century American would taste, it would have been him. ---
**Author:** ![something\_clever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@something\_clever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/something_clever)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/33 "2003-03-07T03:02:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bippy the Beardless \* > \*\*What do the people who practice placenta eating say the placenta tastes like? \*\* i hate you… why did you have to mention that. that thought made me sick to my stomach, i dont think im ever going to eat caramel sundae crunch ice cream again… :smack: whats the word… something aversion? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/34 "2003-03-07T03:14:44Z")
I posted the OP, in part, because the famous SD column on the popularity of Spam among South Sea Islanders made me wonder. Cecil had to address the question: Do they like Spam because it tastes like human flesh? In the end he decided, no, they like it because they like ham and pork, and Spam is conveniently canned ham that won’t spoil until opened; they don’t have much refrigeration. But Cecil never addressed or questioned the underlying assumptions that (1) human “long-pig” tastes like pork, and (2) people in that part of the world practiced cannibalism in the recent past. Perhaps the OP should have been, is there really such a thing as cannibalism? I don’t mean as a last-ditch emergency food supply, I mean as an accepted practice in a human culture. A few decades ago it was almost universally believed that many “nature peoples” practice, or used to practice, cannibalism --ritual cannibalism, funerary cannibalism, and of course, feasting on the flesh of defeated enemies. But over the past few years I’ve heard some anthropologists interviewed on the radio, claiming that cannibalism is a myth. “Nature peoples” believe in its existence, all right, but when you probe closer, you find out it’s not something practiced by the tribe you’re studying, it’s something done by those OTHER people on the other side of the mountain – those inhuman rat-bastards will eat their own parents, everybody knows that. This is an assertion that sounds plausible and, at the same time, incredible. What about the South American Jivaro headhunters? I’ve seen pictures in “National Geographic” of their preserved heads and skulls – once you’ve seen that, the assertion in the text, that they also ate the brains out of those skulls, doesn’t seem so hard to (forgive me) swallow. And what about the Aztecs? Didn’t their sacrificial religion involve cannibalism on a massive scale? But then, we know about that mainly from the accounts of horrified Spanish Catholics . . . So what’s the story? Is cannibalism fact or myth? ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/35 "2003-03-07T14:44:25Z")
(Pretend I’m singing here) Anything you can ask, Cecil can answer Cecil can answer anything you ask. Yes he can, yes he can, yes he caaaaaan! [Obligatory link to the column in question.](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_054.html) ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/36 "2003-03-07T15:45:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > **Perhaps the OP should have been, is there really such a thing as cannibalism? I don’t mean as a last-ditch emergency food supply, I mean as an accepted practice in a human culture. A few decades ago it was almost universally believed that many “nature peoples” practice, or used to practice, cannibalism --ritual cannibalism, funerary cannibalism, and of course, feasting on the flesh of defeated enemies. But over the past few years I’ve heard some anthropologists interviewed on the radio, claiming that cannibalism is a myth. “Nature peoples” believe in its existence, all right, but when you probe closer, you find out it’s not something practiced by the tribe you’re studying, it’s something done by those OTHER people on the other side of the mountain – those inhuman rat-bastards will eat their own parents, everybody knows that.** Didn’t some tribe have a high incidence of Jacobs-Kreuzfeld disease, which somebody finally realized was because of funerary cannibalism? I have heard an account of an anthropologist on Michael Feldman’s “Whaddya Know?” who claimed a guy in a tribe he was with went a little nuts and killed and ate his daughter. I have no idea how to test the veracity of that claim. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/37 "2003-03-07T15:51:54Z")
Found a cite of the brain-eating as a funerary rite - that form of the disease (which I spelled wrong) is called [kuru](http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001379.htm). So, yeah, some cannibalism goes on. ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/38 "2003-03-07T15:52:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Derleth \* > \*\* > Did Jeffrey Dahmer ever comment on the topic? If anyone would know how a 20th Century American would taste, it would have been him. \*\* Incarcerated serial killer and cannibal [Arthur Shawcross](http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/shawcross/life_1.html) reported to a journalist on HBO’s America Undercover documentary on cannibalism that human flesh tastes like “really good roast pork.” ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/39 "2003-03-07T16:10:36Z")
I heard from somewhere that human meat is high in saturated fat and cholesterol. Guess you are what you eat! 😃 As for me, with my steady diet of meat flavored products and by-products, why, I’d taste DELICIOUS! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![karomon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@karomon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/karomon)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414/40 "2003-03-07T20:27:54Z")
I seem to remember watching a Faces of Death video that fully documented members of a cult eating a dead person. This looked like it was from the 60s or early 70s. I don’t remember whether or not they described the taste, but then again, they were eating it raw. Now that I think about it, is that Faces of Death stuff real? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-human-flesh-really-taste-like-pork/159414.md?page=3)