More Soup, Anyone?

My wife's friend has an acquaintance . The acquaintance recently had a baby. At the birth, the acquaintance made an unusual request of the hospital staff.

Brainstorm for a second. What could it be? What's the most off-the-wall thing any birthing woman could request?

Earphones for the TV? A mani/pedi while she pushes? A clean, drug-free, and painless delivery?

Wrong. The acquaintance requested the placenta to take home to use as the secret ingredient in a soup to be fed to the family.

My wife asked, "What? Are they cats?" (She has a very sensitive gag reflex. You wouldn't believe some of the things that have caused her to dry-heave. I know she can't help it, but sometimes it really hurts my feelings.)

Apparently, TomkatCruiseholmes decided to eat their placenta when Surly was born. But that's the kind of thing we expect from them. We hear Tom talking about playing golf with extra terrestrials and we accept it without pause. That's where Tom lives. It's his world. But here in the Midwest, it's a bit out of the ordinary to hear of people eating afterbirth.

I did some research on this and found that Southeast Asians find this quite appetizing. In fact, they're not even picky about whose placenta it is. They can it over there like Campbell's and sell it in stores. It's not even a delicacy to them. It's Placenta Helper. In some Chinese markets, you can find large fresh placentas for US$12. Now, define fresh - I mean, it's been floating inside a human abdomen for nine months. (My wife is gagging.)

I'm definitely going to think twice before I eat anymore Ramen Noodles. At least until I find out what Ramen means.

Have we crossed a line here? I know its supposed to be nutritious, but so is coleslaw. What's wrong with a multi-vitamin? I'm serious, I have to wonder about people so eager to reject social norms. Just play by the rules, for goodness sake. Eat some Kashi. Drink some V8. You'll feel great. But don't eat something that's been in your own body.

Who came up with this? I don't know why but I have this picture in my mind of the aftermath of such a birth with a big, burly custodian cleaning up the mess, licking his chops, looking up at the mother and saying, "Hey. You gonna eat that?" Surely, I'm not the only one balking at this.

I personally saw with my own eyes each of my four kids' respective placenti, and I'm telling you, it didn't give me the munchies. On the contrary, the arrival of a new child usually precipitates the loss of a few pounds.

Then my wife told me that some people I actually know kept their umbilical cord, boiled it, and drank the water like tea. Do they have no Tetley? That is repulsive. Still, the placentavores probably look down on these cord people as pansies. "What are you, a little girl? You only drink the water? Come on! Put that thing on Triscuits and throw down!"

This, like many other things, is a slippery slope. May I remind the world that decent folk at one time viewed the veggieburger as completely unnatural, the quintessential oxymoron. Now you can find otherwise moral people voluntarily ordering and enjoying this frankenstinian concoction at almost any dining establishment in the union. I'm afraid if we don't put a lid on this, your gonna have your neighbors firing up the grill and offering a choice of placentaburger or umbilicaldog.

As I write, my wife tells me of a girl in the news who just had a ten-pound ball of her own hair removed from inside her stomach.

I don’t have the energy for that one. Not today.