Do you like to eat corpses?
- Thread starter K.I.L.E.R
- Start date
Eating corpses from our own species is dangerous, without cooking.
By eating corpses, viruses and bacterium that can infect human may transfer to another human. IIRC there is a tribe in south Pacific ocean where people ate the brain of deceased relatives. There was a strange disease similar to mad cow disease that almost wiped out the tribe. After the doctors prohibited the brain eating tradition, the disease stop transmitting. Of course, if they cook the brain before eating, it would be much safer.
By eating corpses, viruses and bacterium that can infect human may transfer to another human. IIRC there is a tribe in south Pacific ocean where people ate the brain of deceased relatives. There was a strange disease similar to mad cow disease that almost wiped out the tribe. After the doctors prohibited the brain eating tradition, the disease stop transmitting. Of course, if they cook the brain before eating, it would be much safer.
pcchen said:Of course, if they cook the brain before eating, it would be much safer.
I'm not so sure about that - aren't prions (which cause CJD, for example) very tough to destroy? I'm pretty sure that if prions can survive in an autoclave, they can also survive in an oven.
I do remember reading that somewhere in the backwoods of the US, people have developed a similar disease from eating squirrels!
Fruitfrenzy
Newcomer
The disease the tribe got was called Curu Curu or something like that and it is a prion disease as Mariner said.
I think it was only the men in the tribe that got it because they wouldn't let the women eat the brains.
I think it was only the men in the tribe that got it because they wouldn't let the women eat the brains.
The men sure didn't get any smarter by eating brains... Yuck!
Anyway, prions do indeed survive cooking, hence the reason people are so scared of mad cow disease; if it was possible to halt the spread by cooking a steak until it's well done, nobody would care.
Best way to eradicate this is not feeding dead carcasses to herbivore animals though; a practice that has been outlawed in Sweden since at least the mid-80s. Good thing the rest of the world's catching up, finally.
Anyway, prions do indeed survive cooking, hence the reason people are so scared of mad cow disease; if it was possible to halt the spread by cooking a steak until it's well done, nobody would care.
Best way to eradicate this is not feeding dead carcasses to herbivore animals though; a practice that has been outlawed in Sweden since at least the mid-80s. Good thing the rest of the world's catching up, finally.
Yeah, prions are very hard to destroy. They are not bacterium nor real viruses. IIRC even ultraviolet radiation can not "kill" them.
About the "Kuru", what I heard is exactly opposite: only women, elderly, and children eat brains. Anyway, eating human brain is bad.
About the "Kuru", what I heard is exactly opposite: only women, elderly, and children eat brains. Anyway, eating human brain is bad.
K.I.L.E.R said:Mariner said:Where's Derek?
Smart?
Aha - you've obviously never seen Bad Taste!
http://imdb.com/title/tt0092610/
