Cannibalism during a SHTF scenario - would you eat or die?

I think all rules and laws are out the window in this scenario. We are animals like any other and being a butcher i would have no problem gutting and skinning a human to keep me and my family alive and well. Human meat would just be another product on the menu

It all depends, will we have ketchup or BBQ sauce, salt and pepper?



However in all seriousness, I think as a last resort it's ok to eat the dead. There are medical reasons why not to do this I beleive (I think it's a variant of the CJD virus that you can get, especially from brains!). Now I wouldn't KILL a human for food, but eating a dead person in the short term I would consider.

Gotta be as a real last resort though. Like after all the dogs, cats and budgies are gone!

reply to post by TheOven


Yes! I thought of The Road when I read the OP.

I haven't seen the movie but I read the book some years ago. As far as the people saying they would rather eat bugs and dirt, in a scenario like that in The Road, they are suffering a nuclear winter and there is little to no vegetation or game to gather/hunt. The threat of being on another person's menu was very plausible in that scenario.

Honestly I don't think there's a limit to what an individual could do in times of desperation. A traumatic event can wreck someone so bad they're a totally different person than who they were before.
I think everyone here, in this moment would rather starve to death than eat their own offspring or family/friends. But if the S were to truly HTF in the worst way there is no way of knowing what we would become.

If it came down to it and there were no insect or vegetarian alternatives around I would eat another human. I would also kill another human with the intent of eating them. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive. Thats what they did in Jamestown during the great starving time.


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in order to keep my family alive, i would tell them to eat me, unequivocally, and then kill myself in order that they have more chance of survival.

If I can choose to eat a cow when I'm not even close to starving, then you better believe that if it's death vs eating someone, they better be watching their back! (Except my kid. I'd die and let others use me for her to survive if we are going to get really serious about this)

Originally posted by br0ker
If there is ANY hope of meeting demand for food in the future we will have to resort to eating algae.

Soylent Green is people!

On a side note: if you do choose to eat human flesh I'd suggest over cooking it, otherwise you're likely to get really sick.

reply to post by br0ker


We are just meat like cows, pigs etc so why not, if it was me or "you" i guarantee it wont be me getting eaten.

Its only acceptable in a survival environment.

Would I kill another human to eat them? No. Would I eat them if they had already died? Probably. Actually, human meat is quite tasty - similar to veal.

en.wikipedia.org...

Prior to 1931, New York Times reporter William Buehler Seabrook, allegedly in the interests of research, obtained from a hospital intern at the Sorbonne a chunk of human meat from the body of a healthy human killed in an accident, then cooked and ate it. He reported, "It was like good, fully-developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable."


***I don't believe that any of us could eat human flesh for long periods of time, due to the diseases that can and do occur such as "laughing sickness".

en.wikipedia.org...

Kuru is an incurable degenerative neurological disorder that is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, caused by a prion found in humans.[1] The term "kuru" derives from the Fore word "kuria/guria" ("to shake"),[2] a reference to the body tremors that are a classic symptom of the disease; it is also known among the Fore as the laughing sickness due to the pathologic bursts of laughter people would display when afflicted with the disease. It is now widely accepted that Kuru was transmitted among members of the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea via cannibalism.

reply to post by br0ker


I'd rather stab myself in the eyes with a spoon continuously than eat someone else. What a ridiculous thread.

There are plenty of things to eat besides humans. Millions die everyday of starvation, they aint away cooking their mother or neighbour.

Tell you something, if a SHTF scenario were to arise and somehow all the edible plants and animals died before the humans, any person who tried to eat me or my family would soon regret it.

And to say that survival is a natural instinct and you'd not manage to control it is an opinion of the weak minded...anyone with true love in their heart would find the nearest cliff and jump before they ate someone else...

I honestly do not know on this one. It is easy to say yes i would or no i wouldn't but in my opinion i would have to actually be in this scenario to see what would happen. I suspect that i probably would but i couldn't hand on heart say that if confronted by this situation i wouldn't change my mind and run a mile!

Its the same when i roll this out to "would i kill someone to eat them" - i think i would have to experience actually being so hungry and what the alternatives were before i made the decision.

Its the kind of thing i think about whenever 'Alive' is being shown! I think in that situation i'd have joined the rugby boys and chowed down on the dead passengers but again, its hard to know without being in that situation.

Im giving myself a for being on the fence

reply to post by jrmcleod


So what about the film 'Alive'? What would you have done in that situation? (no other food available)

reply to post by br0ker


without having to think about it eat or be eaten
anything to keep my kids alive

reply to post by Flavian


Tried my hardest to walk to safety, get off the mountain and if i died doing so then so be it...As strange as that may sound, its what i would have done. Rather that than eat another human...

reply to post by jrmcleod


I understand where you are coming from. The thing is, unless we are actually in that situation then all opinion is pure conjecture as we do not truly know how we would respond. Our answers here are pure speculation.....

When you resort to cannibalism your throwing away your humanity and any ethics you might have left. When you have no humanity left or ethics what is left to live for?

There is no way I will be eating anyone and if I catch someone eating another person in the SHTF world I will shot them on the spot, hang them from a tree, and post a sign reading “cannibals beware!”

Ive burned my hand bad enough to know we smell like bacon when we are cooked.



That said, Im a little more prepared than that.
With me it wouldn't come to canibalism.

Nature provides, you just need to know where to look.

Absolutely would eat people. And long before the food runs out. I would, however, only eat bankers, politicians and lawyers.

I can't imagine any scenario where I would be able to do this (I would even probably turn vegetarian if I had to kill my own food...yes, I KNOW I'm a wimpy girl...so sue me). And...if I were close to death I would try to get away as far as I could so that I would not become someone else's LUNCH!!!

the best cuts are from the back, never ever though eat the brain unless you want their aura ..... vegetarians are the tastiest ... YUM






lol