"Is that Soylent Green on that plate Grandma?"
What if a worldwide food shortage were to become so terribly dire that people resorted to eating . . . people?
In such a dreadful event, the most-sensible first choice for meals might seem to be the elderly. After all, a fifth of those 10 billion humans will be at least 65 years old, and less physically able than the rest to contribute to what remains of society.
Mercifully, researchers say that feeding on the old – or, really, anyone – would not solve world hunger. In the short term, eating old people might satisfy the gruesome dilemma of how to feed the population and lower it at the same time. But cannibalism on a global scale could never work in the long term.
"If everyone is eating each other, the species won't last very long," said James Cole of the University of Southampton 's Center for the Archaeology of Human Origins.
Part of the problem is that humans are just not very meaty compared with cows, pigs, deer and other animals. Even if we heavily supplemented our diet of human "long pork" with grains, we'd have to consume more fellow humans per year than we could ever hope to replace with new babies.
"Even if social conventions broke down to such a catastrophic extent that we began eating each other wholesale, humans are simply not that nutritionally viable when compared to other mammals," Cole noted.
Which sort of raises the question as to why zombies find the living so tasty...
It's PEOPLE!!!! :P
Lisa
My God Warph.
There are so many horses around, that you can't give them away. Besides I am 64,and not ready to be consumed next year.
Reasearchers with wayyy to much time on their hands.
Methinks there's only one way to describe the mind of anyone who would even entertain a half serious discussion on the subject, let alone actually discuss or research it... deranged.
Quote from: Humpy on November 30, 2011, 02:39:23 PM
My God Warph.
There are so many horses around, that you can't give them away. Besides I am 64,and not ready to be consumed next year.
Reasearchers with wayyy to much time on their hands.
Thank God the government just dropped the ban on slaughtering horses. Huh!