Is our aversion to dead animals instinctive or cultural?

It is cultural. If it was instinctive there would be no market for dog fighting.

I’m sorry to hear about your bird :(

It’s cultural.
In the Middle Ages, Europeans used to welcome entire cooked animal corpses on their tables. We have progressively ‘civilized’ ourselves and cordoned off violence to animals to ‘acceptable’ arenas, like slaughterhouses and meat packing facilities.

But even animals act queerly around other dead animals…..

Maybe a bit of both? I mean, you were attached to the bird, even if for just a short while. Death affects people, hence burials and their cultures and traditions. That stuff I would say is cultural, although they are effects of something much more instinctive. Covering the bird so you don’t see it, I would say is part of that. But would it have been the same, if you found a dead bird in your yard? One you never got attached to? You might just dispose of it for the sake of sanitation, and then you’d never think of it again. THIS bird though, in 10 years, you’ll still remember it.

But say you find an animal carcass on the ground, you’re not going to want to touch it, and the smell will keep you away. That is, obviously, instinctual, and has its reasons for happening. You could get sick if you fucked around with the carcass. touched a dead fish when I was small and got horribly sick, guess I should consider myself lucky to have been born in a modern age haha

And yeah, animals do act up around carcasses. Animals are way more in touch with their instinct obviously, and as survivors, they have to know to recognize death. This will often show, but I don’t believe that however they act is ritualistic in any way. Whether they run off or start munching out, it’s their instinct acting up and making them do whatever that animal is meant to do in that situation. We humans created the entire idea of burial and all, which is secondary when it comes to the natural instinct which spawns the need to justify, for lack of better word.

GA @Symbeline. But I think burial is a bit more than just a cultural thing. Rotting corpses are a health hazard.

@Dutchess_III True that. Perhaps people in the past weren’t as concerned with hygiene and sanitation, but if burial and corpse disposal were ritualistic, there certainly was the convenience of keeping corpses from getting everyone sick. Burial, funeral pyres, what have you.

But….then again….we didn’t go around burying dead animal corpses. IDK. Poor bird.

@Dutchess_III : Warriors from numerous societies were buried with their horses, and Ancient Egyptian mummies of cats have been found.

I’m sorry for your loss :(

Eh I’ve never really been bothered by it unless it was an animal that I loved but I think that’s different because there is an attachment there for me.

When I see road kill for example I generally think “oh…well that sucks…” and that’s about it.

Or..Oh no! That stinks! Skunk.

No, my thought process there is “who’s smokin some good weed right now….oh wait nevermind just a skunk” :P

Then there’s the flip side where hunters mount the heads of their kills on the walls of a “trophy” room, or even pose for photos with a fresh carcass…nowt as queer as folks.

I think that it is a cultural thing about being afraid of the dead. I think it is an instinctual feeling to avoid touching the dead because of the smell and risk of infections from a corpse.

I am so sorry about your bird. :(

I definitely believe it is cultural even somewhat a personal decision. There are cultures like the village of Toraja in Indonesia where the dead stay in the home with them. It is definitely personal and cultural.

But my question is, did the rituals and whatnot come about due to instinctive reasons?

@Dutchess_III That’s what I was trying to say. Ritual and tradition when it comes to the dead are man made ideas, but exist because of the instinctive and emotional reactions we have towards death. (opinion, and an unlearned one, at that XD )

I’m a thinkin’ that we don’t want to see the dead body of someone we loved laying around and rotting for a few weeks. It’s that higher reasoning shite.

Good answers and I would also say because death has been so hidden and fear based in our culture for the last 100 years or so. I have seen and been with all of my animals when they died and my last poor kitty was euthanized at home on my bed and when I carried his body out to be buried he defecated on me. I took it in stride.

Death has it’s ways.
When I had to have my beautiful white Embden goose euthanized in 2008 she went in my arms as well and I will never forget her beautiful and angelic body resting on my lap, I sat still with her for about 30 minutes before taking her to her burial site. R.I.P. dear departed friends. :-(
Sorry about your little birdie friend, what happened to him/her?

For me it is instinctive. I hate seeing dead animals, not just the ones I have loved, but all. I have told the story before of spending time on a station in western Qld. It was during drought and animals that are old or weak often don’t survive. I was riding with the owner one day and we came upon an old cow who was down and couldn’t get up. He got out with his rifle, walked over and scratched her ears and head and told her she had been the best cow she could be and he thanked her and shot her. I was bawling just watching and listening and when he got back in the car he was bawling too. This was a rough, tough man of the bush but he hated losing that cow and having to shoot her. I don’t think that was cultural, it was an instinctive feeling from his gut and heart.

Anyhow, sorry to hear about your bird, what kind was it? I never realized how attached one could become to a bird until we were adopted by a run away chicken and then we found a lost cockatiel. I loved them both and bawled when the cockatiel died. The chicken still lives a life of luxury at our house at the beach. We rent the house to an old man for next to nothing with the agreement that he looks after our cat and chicken.

I am a vegan. I have also had to make a life choice for my husband (which was the worst decision in my life, and it is the hardest thing to ever deal with so I pay back by saving some innocent animals by not eating them or having a part in killing them) who was in the hospital on life support. My husband also was an an EMT and had saved my life and many others many times.

After seeing that and making that choice as the years went by I started questioned things more. Thats when being vegan really kicked in.

After researching of course most materials on how the animals are being treated in their final moments before we consume them is what changed my mind why not to consume meat anymore.

Stories like the one above about the cow makes me wonder how can we love animals as pets and then have them at the dinner table. I also thought about Hannibal (funny it is a tv series now) but imagine someone coming and taking your dog for their supper. :/

Me being vegan was a life choice. I do not think we are born to eat meat. I honestly believe it is a choice that we made as a culture. I also think it takes a special person to make end of life decisions for animals that we consume high numbers of so much that the lives of the animals before they hit our plate are nothing more than people in a factory being able to hang and make accurate cuts.

That is not aversion to me it is cold blooded and detached and that takes a special person to accomplish such an emotionless act on a daily basis.

So when I think of it this way, I wonder if we all do have such an aversion to death as we think we do? Because when I see meat on a plate I see a piece of dead meat or death if you will and my mind goes straight to wandering. But the rest of my family have no problem forgetting about where or how it got there.

It was a chicken @rooeytoo. I really didn’t know the bird that well. We only had him for that one day, but it was still sad.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl We are omnivores by evolution. Omnivores by birth. We have the characteristics of both carnivores and herbivores. We can’t change our digestive system at will.

Every living thing on this planet kills in order to survive. It is simply part of life.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl Did you even read your own source?

“According to a 1999 article in the journal The Ecologist, several of our physiological features “clearly indicate a design” for eating meat, including “our stomach’s production of hydrochloric acid, something not found in herbivores. Furthermore, the human pancreas manufactures a full range of digestive enzymes to handle a wide variety of foods, both animal and vegetable.”

“If people were designed to be strict vegetarians, McArdle expects we would have a specialized colon, specialized teeth and a stomach that doesn’t have a generalized pH-all the better to handle roughage. Tom Billings, a vegetarian for three decades and site editor of BeyondVeg.com, believes humans are natural omnivores. Helping prove it, he says, is the fact that people have a low synthesis rate of the fatty acid DHA and of taurine, suggesting our early ancestors relied on animal foods to get these nutrients. Vitamin B-12, also, isn’t reliably found in plants.”

“History argues in favor of the omnivore argument, considering that humans have eaten meat for 2.5 million years or more, according to fossil evidence.”

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Got canines?

@uberbatman Right, we ARE Omnivores to the 10th power.
Sorry militant vegans, it is what it is. I especially dislike people who insist on putting their pets on vegan diets. Dogs fare better than cats but pisses me off.

@Coloma Some people force their pets to be vegetarians? Man, now I’ve heard it all. :/

I’d bet humans began burying the dead because of the smell of rotting flesh. The affection connections may have added the various rites.

FWIW, I agree with @uberbatman and @Coloma, and I’ve been vegetarian more than half my life. It’s hard to deny that humans are naturally omnivorous just looking at our teeth. Eating meat produced by factory farms that regard animals as meat machines is, however, a cultural and lifestyle choice.

Didn’t we start out as non meat eaters though? Like when we were cavemen and shit. It’s a theory, but Charles Darwin suggested that the purpose of the appendix once served to process things like leaves and roots and stuff. dun quote me though

No…humans have always been meat eaters. Also, we still eat leaves and roots.

The oldest hominid skeleton found was Ardipithecus ramidus. They were omnivores.

@Symbeline : Before humans figured out how to hunt prey, I suspect we would have gotten most of our protein from insects!

I think we were born knowing how to hunt, just like a chimp or lions know how to hunt. Sure, there were some “tricks” passed on, but the general knowledge was genetically there.

@Dutchess_III Hmm…well perhaps the appendix was used for eating unprocessed vegetation. I mean we eat all that stuff now, but it goes through a lot before it gets to us, and that includes farmers who eat their own grown veggies.

@bookish1 Could very well be. Apparently bugs are full of protein.

Yes, bugs and grubs are full of protein!

@Dutchess_III : Humans are probably born knowing how to kill animals for food if we need to, but I daresay that collective hunting with tools (can’t take down a mammoth any other way) had to be innovated and developed through culture. (After all, culture is just a name for any nifty trick that you teach your children once you’ve figured it out, or seen someone else doing it.) And I must say, I’m glad that you’re not angry that we have so significantly derailed your thread…

@Symbeline: So you’ve never eaten any? ;)

Of course I’m not angry. Derailing keeps the dead things alive. :)

@bookish1 Absolutely the invention of tools, weapons and collective cooperation allowed us to hunt animals we couldn’t otherwise. I’m just saying, a baby kitten won’t eat a piece of lettuce. A human baby will put almost anything in his or her mouth from day one. (I love your definition of “culture.”)

@bookish1 Agreed. Factory farming is the epitomy of cruelty and deprivation of life quality for farm animals. Big difference between being a happy chicken romping around in a field eating bugs and scratching and laying eggs in a nice barn and doing happy little chicken things than being caged and having your beak burned off. :-(

@uberbatman Again we can argue til the cows come home. Do you guys even read properly?? I read the article. I know more about than you think I know. Stop trying to pick me out of the crowd and start things. If you want debate then go to the debate site. Reread what I said. Actually let me point out what I said so you get it.

I said, “I BELIEVE” we are born to eat meat. I can point you to numerous arguments on the subject. This is another.

I am not sure why you need to keep spewing your ignorance at me. A very wise jelly ironically told me not long ago, “to stop throwing my pearls before the swine.” I’m using that advice now.

You said, and I quote ” I do not think we are born to eat meat. I honestly believe it is a choice that we made as a culture. ”

All he did @nofurbelowsbatgirl, was copy and paste directly from the article you provided us to back up your claim that we weren’t born to eat meat…and it backfired on you. That wasn’t @uberbatman‘s fault.

Factory farming is not only bad for animals it is bad for the humans that consume the meat. It is shot full of antibiotics, it is one of the reasons that when you take an antibiotic it is no longer as effective as they once were, it is one reason why super bugs are showing up in hospitals. I only eat free range and hope for the best.

@Dutchess_III No those are 2 different statements!!!! Lmfao.

Go ahead, go try to drink a huge glass of milk without puking, you can’t because our bodies can’t digest the sugars in milk.

There is arguments against both sides even I know that and that is all I meant, I’m sorry if I did not say that, but when your mind is racing 100 miles a minute then sometimes yeah I forget some shit. OK.

Why don’t the 2 of you just leave me alone, if you are trying to chase me out of fluther, it is working.

OK. If you guys want to twist everything I say for your sick and twisted little games go ahead, but its no wonder the turn around rate in the joint is so fricken high.

@rooeytoo That’s the reason that McD’s imports their beef from Australia, because they’re free range and they don’t get the heavy doses of antibiotics that American cattle do.

I drink huge glasses of milk all the time @nofurbelowsbatgirl. I don’t get sick.

We didn’t twist anything . We copied and pasted your own comments and the comments directly from the link you posted.

We’re not trying to run you off of fluther.

@Dutchess_III Thats exactley what I mean. It’s all ignorance that you keep giving me. You don’t understand what I’m talking about because you are being ignorant, because I don’t say everything the way you know it. A huge glass of milk meaning like a gallon of milk in an hour and I don’t care what you say, you can’t do it, because your body can’t handle it.

Well, initially you said “A huge glass of milk,” not a “gallon.” I would imagine drinking a gallon of milk in one hour would make you sick! Lots of things, that are otherwise good for you, will make you sick if you over indulge. If you ate 100 pounds of potatoes in an hour you’d get sick too. Doesn’t mean potatoes are bad for you.

Suddenly thought of Cool Hand Luke, when he ate, like 50 boiled eggs! Gaag!

@Dutchess_III You see there is there is the ignorance. Of course you may not feel good if you overeat. But that is not why you will puke if you drink a gallon of milk in an hour.

This is more descriptive than I can give from “how stuff works”,

“So it is not surprising that a gallon of milk is also problematic. The three things in milk that are vomit-inducing include:
1) The lactose (also known as milk sugar)
2) The calcium
3) The casein
The problem with lactose is that your body can only process so much of it at a time. You need the enzyme lactase to deal with lactose. People who are lactose intolerant can’t process any lactose, and they may throw up from just one glass of milk. In drinking a full gallon of milk, most people burn through their available lactase and then become lactose intolerant during the challenge. (You might be able to take supplemental lactase to solve this problem, but then you get the same kind of blood sugar spike you get from drinking soda, and that may cause you to puke anyway)
The problem with calcium is that milk contains a lot of it – about 300 mg per 8-ounce glass. A Tums chewable tablet contains about 200 mg of available calcium. So in drinking a gallon of milk, it is like downing 25 Tums tablets at once. That is a big handful of Tums. It messes up the acid balance in the stomach, giving your stomach another reason to consider puking.
The problem with casein is that it also wants to react with the acid in your stomach and instantly turn to cheese..”

k. But why would anyone drink 2 days worth of milk for the family in one hour? Why?

I LOVE MILK! What’s going on another quarrel today? :( I think our aversion to dead thing’s is in our dna it’s deadly

I don’t know @KNOWITALL! We were talking about dead things and the thread turned to the fact that humans are omnivores, which some don’t believe I guess, then we talked about when humans learned to hunt and it was interesting and suddenly, here we are trying to figure out if milk is poison or something and the only way to find out is to drink a gallon in an hour! I don’t know what milk has to do with dead things or omnivores anyway.

I love milk too. Whole milk. It’s a great source of calcium and what’s better with a warm brownie than a cold glass of milk. Yuuuum! Pancakes too.

“Before humans figured out how to hunt prey, I suspect we would have gotten most of our protein from insects”

IMO we probably got most of our protien from carrion.

Lol. It is what happens when you have a brain that goes 100 miles an hour like mine. So sorry.

That too, @WestRiverrat, if it hadn’t been dead too long. I figure that’s how we figured out the benefits of fire…munching on animals that had died and burned in a forest fire.

@Nofursbelow You rock girl we all have bad days! ;)

@KNOWITALL Thanks so much for understanding, :) not many people do. My bipolar has been a battle and any stressor proves to antagonize it. It’s even the reason my sister has disowned me. {{{{U}}}}

Apparently our guts are like primates who rarely eat meat only as a rare treat.

Anyway, just to make things clear. I said “MY” being vegan is a “LIFE” choice. Me putting a link under “I do not think we are born to eat meat” is me contesting to what the article says. “I honestly believe it is a choice that we made as a culture”. And by that I meant the aversion to death. I’m sorry I didn’t specify that.

Vegans and none vegans both have their arguments as to why their diet is the diet to live by. Some vegans argue that we are born that way. I can see both sides. But for me, I made a choice I do not think I was born that way. Albeit, I am way healthier living a vegan lifestyle.

I was proposing that since we have people that can kill animals that can be our pets in one culture or people who can live with a dead person in their home then that aversion must be a choice we make as a culture…and I guess personally also.

@bookish1 I’ve eaten bugs before. Not that I’d make a hobby out of it, but it really isn’t that terrible. :)

I love to fish and cook my hubs deer but we do feed a lot of family and friends. Seems like natural order to me.

Deer meat is SO bloody. My bro-in-law gave us some once…it was hideous!

Deer is no bloodier than beef or any other meat you find on your plate. It is just that the deer you get is fresh, whereas the beef has been handled and processed so much it has had the blood drained out of it by the time it hits your fry pan.

I wondered that but….I just didn’t like it. I’m sure that’s a cultural thing on my part.

@Dutchess_III Deer is fabulous, low fat, low moisture, all natural. Sometimes we take it to the processor and get sausages and deer brauts, other times he’ll field dress it all, which is also fabulous. You don’t know what you’re missing until I cook you some nice deer jerky sister – lol

Since I was raised on a farm, I’ll tell you, deer is definately not more bloody, and most people hang it for a while to let all that drain anyway. In deer season around here, people aren’t surprised to see a whole deer hanging from a suburban tree.

I believe you! But that was my one and only experience with deer. Maybe they didn’t bleed it out or something. There was blood everywhere.

@Dutchess_III Another good thing about deer, is that the processor will process your deer for free and donate the meat to needy local family’s, so around here, that’s a pretty big benefit. Otherwise they do too much damage to cars and cause accidents when they’re overpopulated, it’s scary driving.

Our Buick I wrote “Oh Deer!” on the hood in magic marker, than had random people & kids sign it. Everyone got a HUGE kick out of writing on the hood of the car! Except not for the deer. :(

We don’t hunt. I went hunting once, with my BF in college. Pheasant hunting. He shot a pheasant and told me to retrieve it. I picked it up…I cradled it in my arm, and kept running my hand down his back. He had such beautiful iridescent feathers. And he was dead. I started bawling. I could hardly walk I was crying so hard. My BF teased me about it. I hated him at that moment.

My husband does every kind of macho thing you can think of…but he doesn’t hunt. He just wants to pet the wild animals! I don’t care what it is, a deer, a skunk, an armadillo, a snake (well, maybe not a snake…my SON wants to pet those) an eagle…if he sees it he’ll say, “O! Look! I want to pe’ it Come here little eagle so I can pe’ you!” (He drops the ‘t’ off of the word ‘pet’ and he sounds like a kid!)

We were at a friends house a while back, and he was describing this deer he had killed (he has 80 acres.) Describing how he’d shot it. Right in the lungs. “A perfect shot!” he said. I should have kept my mouth shut but I said, “So…basically he suffocated to death?”
He looked very annoyed and said, “I guess!”
After Rick and I got home our dogs greeted us. Rick said to our shepherd, “Next time you’re going to Dean’s with us so you can run alllll the little deer off so he can’t shoot them.”

@Dutchess_III I get that, and taking any life deserves thought. The native American Indians always made sure to thank the animal for giving it’s life and used all the parts so there was no disrespect.

Dean made a clean kill, which to hunters is the ideal shot that ends life quickly. In my opinion, worthless hunters are those who don’t practice shooting, so they wound or maim an animal and it runs off to die in pain, and alone, and the meat is left unused, so it’s a worthless and senseless killing.

I don’t know, even though I get your point, if the meat will feed hungry, poor people instead of killing a family of four in a car accident, it’s a good thing. Uncontrolled deer population is very dangerous and if we don’t thin the herds, more humans die.

@Symbeline You should try tarantula sometime, honestly it tastes just like lobster. So yummy.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl I’m not picking on you. I find it interesting that the first moment someone disagrees with you they’re suddenly picking on you. How’s this, instead of letting your brain go 100 miles per hour sit there and proof read your post and consider how it will be perceived by someone else that can’t read your mind before you click that answer button. Otherwise me and others on this site are going to point out the inaccuracies.

I agree with you that humans aren’t designed to handle milk from other animals but that has nothing to do with us not being omnivores. Also while some people have an aversion to milk, not everyone does like you seem to think. Lastly I challenge you to drink a gallon of ANY liquid in an hour and let us know how it works out. I guarantee you’ll vomit.

Here is a story of someone who died from drinking to much water .

I know, @KNOWITALL. I fully understand your position. I, myself, just couldn’t do it.
My BF in college had a friend with him. He shot a pheasant that he couldn’t retrieve because it was on the other side of the river. I about lost it on that one, too.

I have a dog and two birds that I love dearly, and all my life my animals were my pals, but I learned to seperate feelings versus necessity on the farm.

Grandpa told me the cows were not my pets, they were our food, so I could pet them and love them but couldn’t cry when they were loaded up to be processed. He wasn’t really unkind, he was trying to teach me to be hard and practical. Like making me clean and gut the fish we caught for supper, you can’t just catch them and say it’s fun, you have to learn the whole process.

My dad made us clean the fish he caught (which was only once…trout in the Colorado river.) Years later mom told us it was because he couldn’t stand to do it! That’s what we have kids for, though! Do all the dirty work, and teach ‘em when they’re young and pretend it is a great honor. :)

@Dutchess_III I draw the line at hillbilly caviar, pulling the egg sacks out and frying them, nasty!!
My grandpa couldn’t stand watching us do it because we wasted too much of the meat trying to learn to do it in five slices like he did.

I had planned to have verbs in my sentences here for my response to @uberbatman but I decided in one quick moment to erase the comment. The answers you want I can never give you and I am not here to please anyone.
I can’t take the advice uberbatman because I have a D I S A B I L I T Y. Sometimes ignorance may just be what the doctor ordered and so <Insert brick wall here.>

LMFAO because now I am going back to the milk…o_O

As for the milk, humans are the only mammals that drink other animals milk after we are supposed to be weaned from it. The reason is because we live in a society driven on being brainwashed to believe that all these things are good for us (milk does a body good) when the company is probably not interested in you as a person because it is a multi billion dollar money making association and “drinking milk” actually is leading to a decline in health, {lactose intolerance is one health problem people suffer from drinking cows milk}, so in retrospect the drinking of ALL milk is supposed to be stopped after weaning has stopped and that is even actually done in all other mammals.

So in fact we should not be drinking it. Most health problems can be eliminated if people watch what they all in put in their body. One thing which we have witnessed in evolution is that species can learn to adapt. Unfortunately there really isn’t much that can be done about it now. So to those who believe it, “drink milk, love life”. I have lactose intolerance. :P

Did you happen to miss the part where I said I agree with you about milk? It sure seems it from that last post…

I agree with the milk thing too, in theory, but it isn’t harmful unless you’re lactose intolerant, which I’m not. (I’ve had 2 huge glasses today! And cheese and all kinds of milk based products.) Good source of “natural” calcium, too.

We do a lot of things that are “unnatural.” We’ve genetically altered corn (and most of our domesticated crops) over the millenniums until we have the corn we eat today, which bears very little resemble to wild corn, which looks like wheat.

Humans do a LOT of things that other animals don’t do, including cooking our food. That isn’t “natural” but, as it turns out, it’s healthier for you and easier to digest.

@Dutchess_III I’m pretty fond of the raw diet. Are you sure that raw meat isn’t good for you, I think it has to be, all that iron and protein, mmmmmmmm.

@uberbatman Yes I did read what you said and I agree with you. But that last part wasn’t directed just for you.

Did you not get from what I said that I had planned a response but I erased the comment and decided to accept ignorance instead? :/

I personally think all the stuff we eat is unhealthy. High blood pressure, obesity, liver problems, heart problems etc all problems because of stuff we eat.

@KNOWITALL Raw, un-refrigerated meat goes bad really, really quick and will make you sick. Sick, sick, sick (I don’t know why animals don’t get sick, though…?) You could eat a fresh steak raw, but I don’t think it would taste as good, and it would be a lot harder to chew. IMO. Give me that grilled flame taste any day!

@KNOWITALL Raw carrots for me please, my aversion to dead things only allows me to eat like a rabbit rather that eat the rabbit.

Animals don’t get sick because they are carnivores and we are not.

@Dutchess_III I love raw steak, and it’s not tough at all. My friends and I always ask for bleeding meat and gross everyone out, a little char on the outside (five minutes) is perfect.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl I wish I could stick to an all raw diet, but I can’t. The over-processing of foods is bad for you though.

@KNOWITALL it is if it is prepared correctly. Steak tartare and tiger meat are both made with raw meat.

@WestRiverrat Well I’m not dead yet- lol. I’ll have to look that up sometime.

@KNOWITALL Yes, I do not eat processed food either…:/

I like my steaks medium rare. :) Juicy steak!

Have you ever tried to eat uncooked corn? It’ll break yer teeth!

Oh yeah, I use my steamer a lot for things I don’t want to eat raw (for safety). My husband prefers powdered donuts and party pizza’s…gross.

@Dutchess_III I’ve eaten uncooked corn, you have to get it young enough to still be tender. You can eat it cob and all.

There are those roasted corn and they still break your teeth. I had them once, never again.

(But then again, modern corn is man-modified. Wild corn is no more difficult to eat than wheat.)

I eat corn in pretty much everything I consume as it is living in the US, I don’t need to worry about eating raw corn :P

Corn in your pancakes @ucme?

I’m going to assume that comment was directed at me…. for that one probably no corn but half the other things one buys at the super market either has corn derivatives in it or in the case of meat/fish was fed corn for all of its life.

Yes, it was directed at you. Just got the wrong “U” there. Sorry. I Just ate a grilled ear of corn, slathered with butter (which is a milk product) and it was SO good)! Also ate about 5 jalapeno poppers, which are filled with creme cheese (another milk product) .... SO good. The hamburger patty I left. :)

I had a rare steak with crab meat and melted bleu cheese and an ear of grilled corn slathered in butter myself for dinner. YUM

Well, I just hate you now @uberbatman!

Dead humans and dead animals as such are actually not a direct threat (at first). For this reason in disaster zones it’s more important to provide sanitation and clean drinking water before you bury the dead. Living people get diarrhea, dead people don’t.

Dead bodies attract living creatures capable of transmitting diseases. For this reason evolution created the instinct. Cultural evolution did the rest, i.e. the transfer of knowledge about the related dangers.