The taste, though, had none of the delicate, subtly beefy flavor of veal. Definitely dark meat—organ meat, I thought, but it wasn’t exactly like anything I’d ever eaten before. It had a strong but not overpowering flavor. I swallowed Claire’s placenta and picked up another forkful.
It tasted very much like the chicken gizzards we’d fried up as college students. “It’s very good,” I told the assembled Rembis clan and they responded with a chorus of moans, groans, and giggles.
A few minutes later, I had cleaned my plate.
As expected, the Rembis kids were full of questions.
“Can I hold your iPhone now?”
“Can we ask Siri a question?”
“Do you want one of my Pringles?”
I squatted down to kid height, pulled out my phone and got on with the important stuff, hoping to avoid one of the of the side effects of placenta eating I’d read about: unpleasant burps.
So is there any real benefit to the practice of placentophagy? If one were to gauge the benefits by the number of societies that engage in it, the answer would be a resounding “Nope.”
Maggie Blott, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (UK), believes that there’s no medical justification for humans to consume their own placenta. “Animals eat their placenta to get nutrition—but when people are already well-nourished, there is no benefit; there is no reason to do it.’
But what about the alternative scenario—that consuming placentas could possibly have detrimental effects?
According to Mark Kristal, “The sharp distinction between the prevalence of placentophagy in non-human, non-aquatic mammals, and the total absence of it in human cultures, suggest that different mechanisms are involved. That either placentophagia became somehow disadvantageous to humans because of illness or sickness or negative side effects, or something more important has come along to replace it.”
Ultimately, though, the possibility of negative effects and the lack of evidence for beneficial effects doesn’t faze folks like Claire and William Rembis and, similarly, it didn’t prevent Oregon representative Alissa Keny-Guyer from sponsoring bill HB 2612, which was passed unanimously by the state Senate in 2013. The new law allows Oregon mothers who have just given birth to bring home a second, though slightly less joyous, bundle when they leave the hospital.
Except in rare cases, it appears that medicinal cannibalism is at worst a harmless placebo. But, if that’s true, then beyond our culturally imposed taboo, maybe there exists another reason why we don’t indulge in cannibalism on a more regular basis. Recalling that UNLV researchers found no mention of placentophagy in the 179 societies they examined, I wondered if perhaps these groups knew something that ritual cannibals, proponents of medicinal cannibalism, and modern placentophiles have missed.
* * *
36 In a 2013 study conducted by researchers at UNLV, 198 women who had “ingested their placentas after the birth of at least one child” were surveyed: 93 percent were white, 91 percent were from the U.S., 90 percent were married, and 58 percent reported a household income of more than $50,000 per year.
37 Currently, there are 5 species of monotremes (4 echidnas and the platypus) and 334 species of marsupials. The latter are commonly referred to as “pouched mammals,” although a pouch, or marsupium, is not a requirement for entry to the marsupial club. What all marsupials do share is a short gestation period, after which the fetuslike newborn takes a precarious trip from the vaginal opening to a teat (usually found within the marsupium). Upon finding one, the tiny creature latches on for dear life, and continues what is essentially the remainder of its fetal development for additional weeks or even months.
38 The word umbilical is Latin for “navel” or “middle.” Blood from the umbilical cord is rich in stem cells and so it is sometimes collected and “banked,” to potentially be used down the road to treat a number of blood-related disorders, including leukemia and lymphoma.
39 I discounted unpublished reports that the male author of the voracious carnivore hypothesis was found choking on a disposable diaper.
40 Yes, rat babies are known as kittens (which should make dog lovers smile). The largest kitty litter I was able to uncover is 26—presumably a tough number for the 14 baby rats that couldn’t immediately latch on to a nipple.
41 A doula (from the Ancient Greek for “female servant”) is a non-medical person who assists the mother before, during, and after childbirth. After reportedly engaging in turf battles with medical personnel, some hospitals banned doulas while others started internal doula programs—presumably in an effort to reduce the number of birthing-room-related fistfights.
42 Mr. Duncan died about a week later, his case igniting a media-fanned fear fest reminiscent of the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
43 In May 2015, I learned that Claire had given birth to her 11th child (a son).