September 9, 2019
A Swedish
scientist speaking at Stockholm summit last week offered an unusual possible
tactic in combating global climate change: eating human flesh.
Stockholm School
of Economics professor and researcher Magnus Söderlund reportedly said he
believes eating human meat, derived from dead bodies, might be able to help
save the human race if only a world society were to “awaken the idea.”
Söderlund’s
argument for human cannibalism was front and center during a panel talk called
“Can You Imagine Eating Human Flesh?” at the Gastro Summit, reports the Epoch
Times. “Conservative”
taboos against cannibalism, he said, can change over time if people simply
tried eating human flesh.
Some of the
talking points at the seminar included whether humans were too selfish to “live
sustainably” and if cannibalism is the solution to food sustainability in the
future.
When asked during
an interview after his talk if he personally would try human flesh, Söderlund
said he was open to the idea.
“I feel somewhat
hesitant but to not appear overly conservative … I’d have to say … I’d be open
to at least tasting it,” he told Sweden’s TV4.
He suggested more
plausible options such as eating pets and insects.
Before human meat
becomes the next cuisine trend, however, history shows there are potential
health risks to cannibalism.
A tribe in Papua
New Guinea practiced eating their dead as an alternative to allowing them to be
consumed by worms, according to the Standard. The cultural practice led to an
epidemic of a disease called Kuru, also known as laughing death.
According to the
US National Library of Medicine, the disease is caused by an infectious
protein found in contaminated human brain tissue. The practice of cannibalism
among the people of New Guinea came to an end in 1960.
