Cannibalism - #17: The Liver

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TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE: Cannibalism (munching) “could you eat a whole human being? (munching) With the help of a doctor, a scientist and a chef, I set out to see if it’s possible. Cannibalism: part seventeen – the liver”. (burp)

Like Hannibal Lector, could a cannibal eat a census-takers liver with a nice chianti? Maybe.

1990, North Korea, Park Myung-sik nicknamed The Organ Harvester scoured the farms of rural villages in search of fit young teens. Across 7 months, at least 9 of his 13 known victims were found stabbed, with their abdomens ripped open. Only this specific cannibal wasn’t a bit peckish, as being an alcoholic with chronic cirrhosis, he mistakenly believed that by eating healthy livers, it would cure his disease.

As the largest organ in the torso, the liver weighs 3lbs or 1 ½ kilos, and as a dark-red organ shaped like a cone, it sits on the right of the abdomen, under the diaphragm and above the stomach. But it’s not just there to filter the alcohol when we’ve had too much booze, the liver is a multi-functional organ.

Holding 13%, roughly a pint of your blood at one time, the liver stores nutrients, removes waste, filters chemicals, metabolises medications, produces bile for breaking down fats, and clotting agents for blood. Divided into two main lobes and subdivided into 100,000 smaller lobes, it regulates blood sugar levels, it produces heat to maintain our body temperature, it helps keep our mind healthy and toxin-free, and is the only organ which can regenerate itself, and you can survive with 70% of it removed.

In 1847, Jeremiah Johnson of Wyoming, known as ‘liver eating Johnson’ launched a vendetta against the native American Flathead tribe after the murder of his wife. For which he scalped 300+ Crow Indians and ate their livers. But as either a myth, rumour, or exaggeration spawned in an era where the barely literate got their facts from ‘dime novels’, it’s possible that this was a lie to induce fear.

With just 10% fat, 33% blood and not being a muscle but a gland, the human liver contains just 2500 calories, barely enough to keep a cannibal alive for a single day. As a source of energy, it’s poor, but being so nutrient dense – storing vitamins A, D, E, K, B12, iron and copper – the liver is a super food.

So, could a cannibal eat a liver with fava beans and a nice chianti? No… at least, not in one sitting.

If you ate another person’s liver, you’d receive half the toxic dose of Vitamin A in a single hit. Known as Hypervitaminosis, even palaeolithic cannibals knew the danger of liver toxicity, with too much eaten leading to vomiting, delirium, and death. So, I hate to be the party pooper Dr Lector, but with any more than 100grams of liver being too toxic for a human, a whole liver would take you 15 days to eat.

That said, by those guidelines, with 167,000 people dying each day, if we put our morals aside, 100 grams of liver a day would make a little over half a million pounds of half decent pate, enough to keep the entire population of Paris happy (or less miserable) for the rest of their baguette chomping lives.

Being bitter and sweet, like pig’s liver, human liver would be suitable for stews, or panfried with onions and bacon. With no gristle, little fat or sinew and no bone, it need little preparation or cooking, as being soft, silky and lean, anything more than medium-rare would make it taste like an old boot. And as a permeable organ, it also suits being smoked, or flavoured with chilli, red wine or peppercorn.

When removing a cadaver’s liver, although possibly too drunk to know, ‘The Organ Harvester’ of North Korea could possibly tell if a liver was off, as a fresh liver is a rich reddish brown and is slightly firm, but an off liver is pale and slippery. And if the victim also has cirrhosis, their capillaries above their waist would be burst like small red spiders, the whites of their eyes would have a yellow hue (as they can’t process a pigment called bilirubin), the liver would smell of ammonia, and unable to regenerate itself, it would be scarred. And as human meat isn’t vetted like animals, there is no way to tell if it has blood diseases like Hepatitis, without prior medical knowledge.

1997 to 2000, in Ryazan, Russia, Igor Churasov nicknamed The Scavenger of Humanity murdered seven people with an accomplice in the wake of the collapse of Communism and the starvation of its people. Strangling his victims, on one occasion with a hose, he cut up their corpses, pulled out their hearts and livers, popped them in a frying pan, and ate them. But did he die of hypervitaminosis? No. As although hungry, they shared the livers between them, and ate it over a few days. They’re psychotic, not stupid.

Join me tomorrow to explore if it’s possible to eat a person’s poop-chute… the waste system. Oh, nice.