# Is Human Meat Fatty **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2017, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201 "2017-01-26T04:46:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bokuhaboku](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@bokuhaboku](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bokuhaboku)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/1 "2017-01-26T04:46:40Z")
According to all medical metrics, my wife and I are both in very good shape but we don’t compare well to most cuts we see in the grocery store. My wife is very thin for a woman, but at 20% body fat, she would be on par with a hamburger. I have ~14% body fat, barely low enough to be called “lean” for beef, let alone extra-lean poultry. Are humans naturally fattier than the animals we farm or are the leaner cuts all that make it into the meat section? How do pork loin and human loin compare? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/2 "2017-01-26T05:27:23Z")
Human meat supposedly doesn’t taste bad at all. It is very similar to pork and cannibals sometimes refer to it as “long pig”. I can’t say that I have ever tried it myself but there have been cases of murderers/cannibals feeding humans to others in cooked dishes without them noticing it. It is more about the overall recipe. Unfortunately, cannibalism has a long history due to mental deviants, necessity like the Jamestown starving time or survivors from a disaster or tribal tradition. I have never heard of any of them complain about the taste. A dead person is just a very large slab of meat. How well you prepare it is up to you. A typical American is going to similar to a younger pig (Wal-Mart shoppers may be closer to a mature pig) but both can be prepared quite appetizingly if you do it right. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/3 "2017-01-26T05:29:42Z")
You’re mostly talking about fat external to the major muscles, the fat that you can poke with a finger. A pig has a whole bunch of fat on it’s belly where we get bacon, but very little in the hind legs where we get ham. I suspect a ham made of a human thigh wouldn’t be any fattier than a pig ham. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/4 "2017-01-26T05:40:30Z")
From what I can find online (no idea about the distribution of fat in a human), grain-fed cows for slaughter in the US have, on average, have around 27% bodyfat overall, and grain fed around 19%. It’s not the most detailed of cite [but look here.](http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/threads/body-fat-percentage-of-a-cow.32046/) There’s also [this cite](http://articles.extension.org/pages/35850/on-average-how-many-pounds-of-corn-make-one-pound-of-beef-assuming-an-all-grain-diet-from-background) which says about 28% for USDA choice, yield grade 2 or 3, so the numbers are similar. So you’re doing fine. I imagine there are cuts of you that are extra lean, and cuts of you that are quite fatty, just like in a pig or cow. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/5 "2017-01-26T05:43:11Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > You’re mostly talking about fat external to the major muscles, the fat that you can poke with a finger. A pig has a whole bunch of fat on it’s belly where we get bacon, but very little in the hind legs where we get ham. I suspect a ham made of a human thigh wouldn’t be any fattier than a pig ham. I agree. This is one of the more morbid questions ever posted on the SDMB but it really does have a factual answer so it is still in-bounds as far as I know. The short answer is all it takes is good butcher to render a typical person into perfectly edible meat. Most of the unwanted fat can be trimmed off but some fat is not a bad thing in general when it comes to any meat. You need some for flavor and being too lean is undesirable. That is why they fatten up everything from hogs to Kobe cows before they are processed. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/6 "2017-01-26T05:46:44Z")
Shouldn’t this be in Cafe Society? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/7 "2017-01-26T05:53:38Z")
In the tradition of pointing out that we have an answer or anecdote for anything, we have a Doper that was the coworker with someone that decided to be killed and eaten by a cannibal. It became an internationally famous case because the Germans didn’t know quite to do with it. They had a signed agreement that showed it was consensual (the cannibal eventually got a manslaughter charge and now advises other potential cannibals not to go through with it; the convicted killer is a vegetarian now). Apparently, there really is a lid for every pot. > **[Armin Meiwes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes)** > > Armin Meiwes (German: \[ˈmaɪvəs\]; born 1 December 1961) is a German former computer repair technician who received international attention for murdering and eating a voluntary victim in 2001, whom he had found via the Internet. After Meiwes and the victim jointly attempted to eat the victim's severed penis, Meiwes killed his victim and proceeded to eat a large amount of his flesh. He was arrested in December 2002. In January 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight year ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/8 "2017-01-26T06:21:40Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Shouldn’t this be in Cafe Society? My God, I was thinking the exact same thing! But to answer the OP, one has to first define what one means by “naturally”. Farm animals are bread specifically to have a certain fat content, and certain cuts of meats are defined to have certain fat contents, so it’s not even clear what comparison is being made. But if you went out and found you “average” Hunter/Gatherer human, he’d probably be pretty lean. Unless he was an Arctic H/G, in which case he might be a bit fattier. Mmm. Eskimo bacon… ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/9 "2017-01-26T06:30:58Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > It is very similar to pork and cannibals sometimes refer to it as “long pig”. Is this a true thing? I thought “long pig” was a joke by travel writer Paul Theroux. > **[The Straight Dope - Chicago Reader](https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/the-straight-dope-458/)** > > Regarding Spam \[May 1\], is it true, as travel writer Paul Theroux claims, that the people of the South Pacific love their Spam because it tastes so much like…people? –Mary E. Sage, via the Internet Marketing Spam must present some unique challenges.... ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/10 "2017-01-26T06:32:56Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The short answer is all it takes is \*\*good \*\*butcher to render a typical person into perfectly edible meat. Can we assume you’re using the word “good” as a synonym for “skilled”? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/11 "2017-01-26T12:39:05Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Can we assume you’re using the word “good” as a synonym for “skilled”? That is correct. Thankfully the Church of Euthanasia has a a detailed online guide for do-it-yourselfers. [Butchering the Human Carcass for Human Consumption](http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/butcher.html) ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/12 "2017-01-26T12:44:54Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > Is this a true thing? I thought “long pig” was a joke by travel writer Paul Theroux. > [http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-straight-dope/Content?oid=896572](http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-straight-dope/Content?oid=896572) As far as I can tell, “long pig” is a fairly accurate English translation from some Polynesian languages in areas where cannibalism was once practiced. There are references to the term all over the place and sites like Wikipedia give secondary sources that do not appear to be a joke. "European explorers and colonizers brought home many stories of cannibalism practiced by the native peoples they encountered. The friar Diego de Landa reported about Yucatán instances,[66] and there have been similar reports by Purchas from Popayán, Colombia, and from the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, where human flesh was called “long pig”.[67] " > **[Cannibalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism#cite_note-67)** > > Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well documented, both in ancient and in recent times. > The rate of cannibalism increases in nutritionally poor environments as individuals turn to members of their own species as an additional food source. Cannibalism regulates population numbers, whereby resources suc... ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/13 "2017-01-26T17:29:28Z")
You’re comparing 2 different types of fat measurement to each other. Medical body fat measurements estimate\* overall body fat, which as pointed out includes a lot of visceral and subcutaneous fat, whereas the fat content of grocery store meat only includes what’s been left on/in the cut after butchering and trimming. So if you’re starting at 14% total body fat, your meat cuts will likely be quite a bit leaner, unless you selectively trim them to include a lot of fat. - all body fat “measurement” types are actually estimates… you can only truly measure your body fat amount by having it dissected ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/14 "2017-01-26T17:39:24Z")
do we develop intramuscular fat like you’d see in a well marbled steak? ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/15 "2017-01-26T20:23:59Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > Is this a true thing? I thought “long pig” was a joke by travel writer Paul Theroux. > [http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-straight-dope/Content?oid=896572](http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-straight-dope/Content?oid=896572) I looked up the Paul Theroux book and see that it was published in 1992. I also remember the first time I saw the term “long pig”. It was in 1983, in a caption of a late 1800s photo of headhunters and a human body, their victim. The photo was on display in the Bontoc Museum, in the Mountain Province of Luzon, where cannibalism was still practiced until the early 1900s by the indigenous people, the Ifugao, despite government attempts to suppress it. > **[Google Sites: Sign-in](https://accounts.google.com/v3/signin/identifier?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Fsites%2Fsystem%2Ferrors%2FWebspaceNotFound%3Fpath%3D%2Fmuseumsofthephilippines%2Fdirectory%2FLuzon%2Fbontoc-museum&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Fsites%2Fsystem%2Ferrors%2FWebspaceNotFound%3Fpath%3D%2Fmuseumsofthephilippines%2Fdirectory%2FLuzon%2Fbontoc-museum&ifkv=AdF4I76wdt4OrC2ObjFIeCPm7PXCdmLwRoZpy2irNk8Ar98MHJeTZ9GKxpRwQ44z93ZySholG2P84g&passive=1209600&service=jotspot&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=ServiceLogin&dsh=S-670340016%3A1722366726438768&ddm=0)** > > Access Google Sites with a personal Google account or Google Workspace account (for business use). ---
**Author:** ![plankter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@plankter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plankter)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/16 "2017-01-27T02:36:04Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > Is this a true thing? I thought “long pig” was a joke by travel writer Paul Theroux. > [http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-straight-dope/Content?oid=896572](http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-straight-dope/Content?oid=896572) From the column you linked to: The joke was not that certain cannibals referred to human flesh as (a word or words translatable to English as) “long pig”, but rather that said cannibals relished the taste of Spam because it tasted like human flesh. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/17 "2017-01-27T15:06:32Z")
Many, many years ago when teen I asked a family friend who was a Statlingrad survivor the great question of what did human flesh taste like. Because I was not being a brat I was an all too inquisitive teen asking a serious, respectful question that wasn’t easily answered by a trip to the local library, she answered seriously. In her opinion, we taste like pork though not the gourmet varieties more like the cheap factory farm stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/18 "2017-01-27T16:05:04Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > In the tradition of pointing out that we have an answer or anecdote for anything, we have a Doper that was the coworker with someone that decided to be killed and eaten by a cannibal. … > [Armin Meiwes - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes) Holy crap. And I thought it was amazing we had a Doper whose actual job it was to fix grocery cart wheels, and when he spoke EVERYBODY shut up in a long thread. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Many, many years ago when teen I asked a family friend who was a Statlingrad survivor the great question of what did human flesh taste like. Because I was not being a brat I was an all too inquisitive teen asking a serious, respectful question that wasn’t easily answered by a trip to the local library, she answered seriously. In her opinion, we taste like pork though not the gourmet varieties more like the cheap factory farm stuff. My thought here is perhaps similar to the one above, but the facetious “Holy crap” turns into some kind of real appeal to the sacred, on the reality and the horror. The Prophets lament similar astonishments and recognitions. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/19 "2017-01-27T17:39:37Z")
Have you seen a series about 600+ lb. people? (who are trying to lose weight but that doesn’t come into play in the answer) Yes, I’d say some human meat can be VERY fatty. ---
**Author:** ![bokuhaboku](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@bokuhaboku](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bokuhaboku)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2017, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201/20 "2017-01-27T21:17:59Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > From what I can find online (no idea about the distribution of fat in a human), grain-fed cows for slaughter in the US have, on average, have around 27% bodyfat overall, and grain fed around 19%. > > It’s not the most detailed of cite [but look here.](http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/threads/body-fat-percentage-of-a-cow.32046/) There’s also [this cite](http://articles.extension.org/pages/35850/on-average-how-many-pounds-of-corn-make-one-pound-of-beef-assuming-an-all-grain-diet-from-background) which says about 28% for USDA choice, yield grade 2 or 3, so the numbers are similar. > > So you’re doing fine. I imagine there are cuts of you that are extra lean, and cuts of you that are quite fatty, just like in a pig or cow. Thanks, this answers my question. Based on your sources, cattle body fat percent is roughly the same as (healthy) humans. As others have posted, the cuts I see in the butcher aren’t very representative of the whole animal. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-human-meat-fatty/778201.md?page=2)