I'd called Stanley Garn because I was looking for anthropologists who had done a nutritional analysis of human flesh and/or organ meats. Just, you know, curious. Garn hadn't exactly done this but he had worked out the lean/fat percentage of human flesh. He estimates that humans have more or less the same body composition as veal. To arrive at the figure, Garn extrapolated from average human body fat percentages. There's information of that sort on people in most countries now, he said. So you can see who you want for dinner.
In the book "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers," author Mary Roach explores various intriguing aspects of human anatomy and the science surrounding it. In a specific instance, Roach recounts her inquiry with anthropologist Stanley Garn regarding nutritional analyses of human flesh, as she was simply curious about it. While Garn had not performed such studies, he shared that he had calculated the lean-to-fat ratio of human flesh, drawing parallels between humans and veal.
Garn estimated that the body composition of humans is quite similar to that of veal, using average body fat percentages from various populations to arrive at this conclusion. He noted that there is substantial data available about body metrics from numerous countries, hinting at a macabre curiosity of human consumption. His comments provide a unique perspective on human anatomy, inviting readers to reflect on the implications of such comparisons in dietary terms.
