Rare images of the Tibetan sky burial (not for the sensitive, by the way) are now available. It is the beautiful and economic practice of offering up corpses to the scavengers of Tibet. This is done because there is not enough fuel readily available for cremation and burial is out of the question due to rocky terrain and permafrost.
If you would like to see the photos (warning: they are graphic) they are included as "Further Reading" on the Wikipedia page referenced above.
Today, I was up at the asscrack of morning. I am not typically very....um....friendly/awake/friendly....at that hour. On the way to the gym we were listening to radio and the Bob and Tom Show was on. They were talking about a recent report from Italy claiming that some pizzerias in Naples may be using coffin wood to fuel their pizza ovens.
Apparently, some enterprising grave robbers have been raiding cemeteries and selling the wood to the restaurants at rock bottom prices.I am not terribly familiar with how embalming chemicals (or what Italian procedures for embalming are) react with the body and what may seep into the wood. Or if bodily fluids and effluvia seep into the wood.
So many bad, and inappropriate, jokes so little time.
My first reaction is--ew? but is it really ew? It is just wood being re-purposed after all. I do wonder about chemicals that may be present in the wood that may react with the food once burned.
The story does have some odd connection to movies that feature cannibalism. In this case that secret flavour is people, even if people are not being eaten directly.
5 comments:
When I worked at the university, the bodies we got 'fresh' every year were embalmed with alcohol (wood grain). I don't know if anyone uses Formaldehyde anymore (the EU tends to limit/prohibit use before the US) so exposure would probably be the same as drinking a diet soda past its expiration date.
I like the photos (recycling at it most basic form) and don't mind re-purposing the wood, but I draw the line at Sweeny Todd. Although I've heard humans taste like chicken...
You were right the first time: ew.
heh. That is what I as thinking--it is just wood and not actual body bits.
I think the "ew" was knee jerk. Sort of like me not being able to drink Kopi Luwak coffee. Civet cats are cute and all but I sort of don't want to drink poop coffee.
I've heard the animal our flesh is most like is pork.
The cannibal we had in Seg said it did in fact, taste like chicken. He kept his girlfriend in the trunk of his car and drove around eating on her for a week before he was caught.
But yes, I think my concern would be the chemical saturation. Otherwise, I don't see why it's a big deal. We eat vegetables and fruits planted in the dirt where at some point, somebody died and their bodies returned to the earth. So, the whole circle of life thing and whatnot.
@Sara
hehehe, hehehe I KNEW you would have a story. Sigh
I *think* there are laws regarding not being able to reuse coffins (some families opt for cremation). Which just seems silly. Like a corpse is going to care that another corpse sat in the coffin for a day?
The practices in some states are very odd and embalming is such a brutal process. It is odd how, given our squeamishness around corpses that we have sort of stopped the whole circle of life thing.
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