Does our changing diet effect the speed at which our bodies decompose?

Wasn't sure if this was the right area to put this so please feel free to move it to a more appropriate area if necessary.

Most of the food we eat contains some sort of preservatives. Would a lifetime of consuming preservatives effect how long our bodies are taking to decompose? For example, would a human body decompose slower today than one a hundred years ago or even a thousand years ago? (Assuming all the other environmental factors were the same?)

For example, if you had two people of same age, build etc. Person one has spent a lifetime of eating nothing but fresh food...meat, vegies, grains etc. Person two has spent a lifetime eating processed foods full of preservatives...fast food, canned goods, packaged foods...etc)

They die of natural causes and their bodies are laid to rest in the same area. Do they decompose at the same rate or does the body belonging the the person who has only eaten fresh food, deompose quicker?

Oh my. What a morbid but intersting question.

I can't say. I'm not into diggin up bodies and comparing.

Maybe you could find a way to contact the Body Farm and ask them that.

Well to give you an idea, Jedi and the Sith are vegetarians, which is why their bodies vanish upon death.

reply to post by asmeone2


Thats a good idea. I just sent an email to the University of Tennessee Anthroplogical Reseach Facility (the original Body Farm) and asked them.

Thanks.

reply to post by eternal_vigilance


It's a very interesting idea. I am not sure the answer. I don't really have any good guesses. I think if anything they would have to LOAD up on preservatives the day they died for it to have affect. I dunno.

I am more interested in how this thought came to you?

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy
reply to post by eternal_vigilance

 

It's a very interesting idea. I am not sure the answer. I don't really have any good guesses. I think if anything they would have to LOAD up on preservatives the day they died for it to have affect. I dunno.

I am more interested in how this thought came to you?

I dont know. My brain comes up with some strange ideas sometimes. There is a big push on healthy eating with our Government and in the media and everything so thats probably what triggered it.

Or maybe I am just weird (in which case I am right at home on ATS )

haha

I read an artical some thirty years ago and a study had been done that showed the slowing of decompsition due to the preservatives we consume.Please don't ask me where I read it,I was a kid then;but I've never forgotton it! lol

I read that it takes twenty percent less embalming fluid today than in the nineteenth century. Also, in the health book Fit For Life, if I remember correctly, they say that cannibalistic aborigines prefer Asians to westerners because their meat is more tender.

I wonder why the Asians were tenderer? Maybe because of MSG??

Now you've got me curious. Will you post an answer if you hear back from the Body Farm?

The bit about Asians being more tender than whites sounds like an urban myth to me, or else natives playing a joke on anthropologists (which has happened more often than anthropologists would like us to know). But I suppose it's possible, since our diets are so different, and that makes a big difference for beef

reply to post by eternal_vigilance
Good post and interesting question. I've seen a body being enbalmed and most people choose enbalming (very nasty / bio hazard stuff).

Personally, when I pop off I am going to be cremated. Nice, clean no mess no fuss.

I am still waiting on a reply from the Body Farm. I will certainly post it here when I get one!