What makes one a cannibal?

Question

Serious question, really. Does eating finger or toenails make a person a cannibal? Where exactly is the line drawn?

Answer 1

It is interesting to note that currently the cheapest source of material from which food grade L-cysteine may be purified in high yield is human hair. Its use in food products is widespread worldwide. Some debate that consuming L-cysteine derived from human hair is not actually cannibalism. Some believe cannibalism occurs any time any human body part is intentionally harvested, prepared, and consumed as a food.

Few people identify the compulsion to gnaw and bite nails or pieces of skin from fingers as cannibalism, because it is not the intentional harvest of a food item. Similarly, intentionally consuming one's own flesh or body parts, such as sucking blood from wounds, is generally not seen to be cannibalism; ingesting one's own blood from an unintentional lesion such as a nose-bleed or an ulcer is clearly not intentional harvesting and consequently not cannibalistic.

Answer 2

In zoology, the term cannibalism refers to any species eating the flesh of other members of its own kind. I don't think fingernails and toenails constitute cannibalism.

Answer 3

Eating a meal comprised of human flesh makes you a cannibal.

Answer 4

Eating a meal comprised of human flesh makes you a cannibal.

Answer 5

I think anything that eats its own is a cannibal. Ex. Komono Dragons that eat their young or Humans that eat human meat (bithing your own fingernails, and sucking your own blood when you have a cut doesn't count but taking a bite out of someone else does)

Answer 6

Having your friends for dinner....finger and toenails do not count...they are parts that we cut off anyway...it's a problem when you eat the whole finger with the nail...

Answer 7

Few answers:
- old tribe traditions;
- hunger;
- twisted mind;
- curiosity;
- lack of basic morals;
cannot think of anything else.
Hope that I'll never be placed in a situation where I even have to consider this option.

Answer 8

one draws the line at eating major parts of a human being


.

Answer 9

when you eat something of your own kind(the flesh)on purpose

Answer 10

HUNGER...