MetaChat - Oh. Dear. God.

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27 January 2008

Oh. Dear. God. NSF anyone with a weak stomach. Really. I'm not kidding.→[More:]

I found this link through this AskMecha thread. Part of me thinks, 'to each his own'. The majority of me is screaming 'CANNIBALS!'. I don't get it.

post by: youngergirl44 at: 16:48 | 24 comments

And Tom Cruise thinks it's normal, so that HAS to mean it's fucked up.

posted by youngergirl44 27 January | 16:49

It's plainly ridiculous.
If you're going to bother, just tear it apart with your teeth and eat it raw. Plebians.

posted by ethylene 27 January | 17:02

I once knew a woman into lotus birth, where they don't cut the umbilical cord. Instead, she left the placenta in a little specially-made pouch, swaddled with the baby, until the cord fully detached (about 10 days). She then kept the placenta in the freezer and used a piece in lasagne every time the poor kid had a birthday. Ew.

posted by goo 27 January | 17:11

Why didn't the placenta spoil if it was out with the baby for 10 days? Did the kid know what he was eating? Did he care?

posted by youngergirl44 27 January | 17:15

Nah, youngergirl, I think it ran out when he was about 5, so too young to really understand. It was really grody by the time it went into the freezer.

I plan to use it for fertiliser, should I ever be in a position to have to dispose of one. I'd rather it fed a nice climbing rose than me - and the kid it nurtured!

posted by goo 27 January | 17:27

Pregnancy websites have some handy hints for mothers-to-be about how they could use their placenta in making prints, using the placenta to make patterns on paper. (source)

The world never ceases to amaze me.

posted by Daniel Charms 27 January | 17:31

I know a couple who ate the placenta as well. He claimed it got him high for a week. As in, I think, high on life. They also gave birth on a beach into a pit filled with seaweed. Kids are named "Misty" and "Cloudy". Very very B.C.

posted by rumple 27 January | 17:42

errr, back in my youth when I was a lab tech in a biochem lab, I used to dissect and process human placentas as part of an extraction of a hormone we were studying. I didn't find it gross. Fortunately, this was in the pre-AIDS era. I wouldn't handle human tissues nowadays.

They'd come to us frozen. We'd thaw them just enough to remove some of the larger blood vessels and the tough membrane.

I had other duties in that lab, unnamed here, that were much more gross.

posted by DarkForest 27 January | 17:48

Meh. We're all just uppity meat.

posted by eamondaly 27 January | 19:04

I've got friends who've eaten placenta. I think it's kind of a sweet thing to do. Plus there's supposedly a bunch of hormones and vitamins in them that help to replenish the just given birth body.

posted by seanyboy 27 January | 19:08

I DON'T WANT TO BE EXPOSED TO PLACENTA.

Wow... just when you thought you've seen it all...!

posted by Doohickie 27 January | 19:24

Goes back forever. Cheapie link.

Lots of main stream hair and beauty products contain cow placenta.

I sound all blase blase, but no, I didn't click the link.

posted by rainbaby 27 January | 19:41

In amongst the meat are blood clots. Much as I enjoy black pudding, I think we have to draw the line somewhere.

how nice. i'm so glad i clicked on that link.

posted by jason's_planet 27 January | 20:37

I dunno, if something has been helping another life to play parasite on my system for nine months, I think I'd want to wreak some vengeance on it too. I'll probably think differently if and when I actually have a kid, in which case: anyone know the going rate for human placenta in the cosmetics industry?

sorry rainbaby, your link disturbs me in a totally non-respectful-of-other-cultures way.

posted by casarkos 27 January | 20:37

Yeah, I know it's an awful link, I was in a hurry, casarkos.

posted by rainbaby 27 January | 21:57

nono, it's okay - I'm saying it's my own reaction that was totally non-respectful etc.

posted by casarkos 27 January | 22:04

I guess there are no lengths some hippies will not go to in their quest to "embrace nature" and all natural processes. Is a hippie mother earth gaia lovin' version of swap.avi to follow? I wouldn't be entirely shocked. However, I have to give them props on the shout out to goatse.

posted by pieisexactlythree 27 January | 22:07

Is a hippie mother earth gaia lovin' version of swap.avi to follow?

We can but hope.

posted by chrismear 27 January | 22:18

wait, is earth lovin' a bad thing now? Are we sneering at that? Also I want to know about hippies, because if we're talking the original ones, they are way past their placenta eating days in that they are way past their childbearing days, or is there a new nasty evil group that wants peace and love?

/which is not to say that the link isn't ucky. it's totally ucky.

posted by taz 28 January | 00:12

Fresh hot pulsing liver is suppose to be delicious, but there would have to be specials conditions for me to want to eat after giving birth. i dunno, anyone else find themselves peckish right then?

posted by ethylene 28 January | 01:42

I saved my daughters placenta, but not for eating. It would be (technically) like eating my own daughter since it's made of the exact same genetic makeup as her - the placenta is after all one half of that fertilized egg. Anyway, that's why I didn't want it just dropped in a pile of biohazard at the hospital and burned, a little superstition in me yelped "don't let anyone else handle your daughters clone" so I brought it home to bury. So, no, not for eating, like youngergirl44 the every thought makes me think "cannibals!" In cave-man times I could see the point of mom eating it but since the invention of spears for hunting, no.

posted by dabitch 28 January | 03:41

from rainbaby's link.

The Ibo of Nigeria and Ghana consider the placenta to be the baby's twin.

So they got that exacty right, it is the baby's DNA twin. (however it is not a human).

posted by dabitch 28 January | 03:44

Meat eaters that wont eat their own placenta, or that of a willing donor are funny. Almost ten years ago we had it served to us on TV.

Vegans could eat it, if it is given willingly!

posted by asok 28 January | 05:47

Shoot, I didn't even give my sons' placentas a second thought. Yeah, I looked at it, felt no big deal about it, and that was that.
I did keep the tiny belly button part once they fell off my kids. So I'm weird that way.

posted by redvixen 28 January | 20:21

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