# The Nutritional Content of the Human Body. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nutritional-content-of-the-human-body/430373 "2007-12-17T19:43:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Long\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/73ab20/32.png) [@Long\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nutritional-content-of-the-human-body/430373/1 "2007-12-17T19:43:06Z")
Hello everyone. I’ve scoured the internet looking for an answer, and hopefully you can help me. I’m researching global cannibalism practices for a college sociology class, and I figure it would interesting to find out the nutritional content of an “average” human body - protein, fat, sugars, vitamins, minerals, the whole works. Unfortunately, this information seems kind of scarce. If you can give me a lead, any lead at all, I would be very grateful. Human beings are said to taste like pork, so I may make some educated guesses based on the nutritional information of ham, but that’s pretty bad science. I apologize for the macabre subject. Thank you in advance. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nutritional-content-of-the-human-body/430373/2 "2007-12-17T19:59:42Z")
Welcome to the Dope, **Long Pig**! Glad to have you with us - and don’t worry, we _love_ macabre questions here. This article looks helpful - "[Aztec Cannibalism - An Ecological Necessity?](http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/aztecs/montellano.htm) ". Scroll down to the section “Cannibalism as a Dietary Supplement”, and you’ll find this paragraph: > [@](#): > > Calculation of the protein available from sacrifices requires several assumptions. Assume that all victims are 60-kg males consisting of 16 percent protein with a digestibility of 90 percent. This percentage is between the values given by Garn and Block (34) and by Dorstreich and Morren (37) and is approximately the percentage of protein in lean beef (16.5 percent), lean lamb (16.5 percent), or lean pork (14.5 percent) (40). Skillful butchering would give a 60 percent dressed yield (34,37). Thus, a 60-kg victim would yield 5.18 kg of protein (60 kg x 0.16 x 0.60 x 0.90). Information about the percentage of total body weight represented by the extremities is hard to find. The Wayne County Medical Examiner estimates that the weight of the extremities would equal 35 percent of the total weight if the buttocks and shoulders were included as part of the extremities (41). If only these extremities are eaten, the protein yield per 60 kg of captive would be 1.81 kg. Note that this article discusses only the potential role of cannibalism to offset protein shortages in Aztec society, and doesn’t address human meat as a source of vitamins or other nutrients. Further, note that this is from 1978 - nutrition science may well have moved on since then. If you decide to cite this article, I’d suggest that you track it down in _Science_ - the linked webpage claims it was published in May of 1978. ---
**Author:** ![Long\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/73ab20/32.png) [@Long\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nutritional-content-of-the-human-body/430373/3 "2007-12-17T21:27:52Z")
Hey, thanks for your reply! I actually found that article already, and I’m definitely planning to cite and use it. Very informative. 😃 Goodness, I find it sort of difficult to believe that no one’s ever dumped a body into a blender and measured the content of the slurry… ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nutritional-content-of-the-human-body/430373/4 "2007-12-17T22:20:04Z")
How weird is your question compared to [THIS](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=174724) thread? ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nutritional-content-of-the-human-body/430373/5 "2007-12-17T22:54:29Z")
[QUOTE=Long Pig] …Goodness, I find it sort of difficult to believe that no one’s ever dumped a body into a blender and measured the content of the slurry… [/QUOTE] Well, perhaps you could suggest it to Tom Dickson