I think, morally speaking (and probably taste too) I'd be ok about eating someone if my life depended on it.

[EleanorHandbasket]

I was just pondering this as I cooked some bacon. As you do.

Pigs are lovely, I'm very fond, but I've no issue with eating them. Lambs too, and all sorts of other animals. And I thought, woudl I eat, say, a dolphin?

Hmm. Probably. Especially if I was really hungry and it was all there was.

And then I thought, well, what about a person.

And do you know, my brain doesn't scream in horror at the idea. If I was marooned on a desert island for eg, with someone else, and they starved to death, I'd probably be ok with cooking and eating what was left of them. And in fact, if someone else did the butchering bit, I'd probably chow down fairly happily.

I've never really thought about it before. But there you go.

AIBU?

no yab very reasonable!! carb free too,dig in!!

I din't think I coukd kill a person. But if it was a survival situation (say a plane crash), I would have no qualms about eating corpses.

YANBU I would as well.

I think that if it was a social norm to eat people then I would be fine with it. We are conditioned to see some species as food but not others by our culture. So some nations eat horses and dogs, but we don't because of cultural issues. However I think that there would be big issues around the provenance and whether it was free range.

I would have absolutely no qualms about it, if they were already dead. I'd be quite happy if when I was dead someone ate me in order to survive.

Oh thank god.

I thought perhaps my brain was malfunctioning. I seriously gave it proper thought and came up with no sense of revulsion so long as a) no one was murdered and b) I didn't have to do the butchering.

Apparently human tastes similar to pork, so YANBU especially with some sweet and sour sauce

you would eat anything (or any one) if you were hungry enough.

And having smelt burning bodies - I cannot stand the smell of pork

I value my survival over a dead person having meat on their bones. So I'd tuck in, with regret and guilt and horror, but I'd eat up.

Weirdest sentence I've wrote on MN there, I'll admit.

I obviously wouldn't be able to do it, as just the thread title has put me off my dinner.

People who have done it as survivors of accidents in deserted areas have ended up traumatised because of it haven't they

I actually don't think I could. Which is pretty pathetic given that the alternative would be starvation. Maybe the desert island scenario would hand me a giant grip.

I've read a few survival stories. The important thing is to get the hands, feet,head and all that off first so they don't trigger you.

I'm vegetarian and find the idea of carving up and eating your own kind in an emergency situation a bit less disgusting than the idea of eating a different creature. It's like you'd know more what you were getting and doing with a human.

If they starved to death though, they wouldn't have a lot of meat on them would they? Would you eat the offal?
I couldn't do liver or kidneys, but I'd manage a stew I think.

I think it'd be majorly hypocritical of me to merrily munch on cows, pigs, sheep and chickens, but then freak out over eating another person. If I'm prepared to eat other creatures, I need to be prepared to eat something from my own species.

I've just finished reading The Hunger Games so have been pondering this sort of thing myself today.

Yeah, I would, in a plane-crashed-in-the-Andes situation.

Has anyone ever read the short story 'Survivor Type' by Stephen King? It's about a guy stranded on a desert island, helpfully with heroin, who is so hungry he starts amputating and eating parts of himself...

Horrifyingly, I wouldn't have an issue with it.

Hmm....you'd have to be a bit careful, wouldn't you? If they died of starvation, possibly, but if they're dead and you're alive and you've had the same amount of food, you have to wonder if there's some sort of infection that finished them off...

I think I would have to be there to know.

Bearing in mind I struggle to cut/handle raw meat I may not be very good.

Good point Lougle.

Hmm.

Although dh (for eg) would starve to death quicker than me on account of his super skinniness and my chunky bum.

I would too.
I've eaten dog out of choice, just once, and in a country where it was accepted, I didn't go after an old lady's guide dog.
It tasted like, erm meat.

I could if they were properly prepared and cooked.
I'd have to have some fava beans and a nice chianti

Nice fencepost wedged up your nether regions there, Sparklingbrook

Oooh Netto. Dog. I take it you didn't see said dog 'in the flesh' prior to its demise?

Ledkr, that doesn't really fit in with the survival theme, does it?