Bacon, Lettuce, and Placenta

Jenn has been looking into something called Placenta Encapsulation. It's just what it sounds like. Someone called a Placenta Encapsulation Specialist takes the placenta, slices it, dries it, powders it up, and then encapsulates it for the mother to practice the art of placentophagy--which is Greek for "eating the placenta of your young." (Those darn Greeks had a word for everything!)

The first time Jenn told me about this practice, she was reading from the plethora birthing books we now have in our lives. And while many women choose to eat a dried encapsulated form, Jenn also discovered several recipes where one can actually prepare the placenta as one would a slab of meat. One site suggested thinly slicing it and treating it with a meat tenderizer or cubing it. It also offered recipes for classic meals such as placenta stew, placenta spaghetti, and placenta fondue. Here are some photos: http://www.twilightheadquarters.com/placenta.html * *

Now I am a man of fifty years, a worldly man, one who has seen and experienced much. I have traveled to Peru and the Middle East; I've stayed up all night partaking in South American and American Indian vision ceremonies; I attended a Buddhist school and have experienced a number of supernatural (or other-natural) events in my life. So naturally, as a man of the world, my initial reaction to my wife telling me she was considering eating her own placenta was, "Ewwwww!"

This, of course, was followed by some obligatory suggestions on my part, offering savory recipes for various afterbirth dishes. If the reader would but close his or her eyes for a moment, imagine plump mushrooms, succulent peppers, and slices of red onion, all skewered together and sizzling on the grill with alternating chunks of fresh afterbirth--a placenta kabob.  For the new mother on the go, there's the classic bacon, lettuce, and placenta on rye. And for that most important meal of the day, let us not forget the placenta breakfast smoothie.

Jenn rolled her eyes at most of my suggestions (which only reflects her good sense), but laughed at the latter. Then she read further down the page. "Oh my God, they do have a recipe for a placenta smoothie!"

Like many things that sound a little "queer," I outwardly made fun of the cult of placenta while inwardly feeling a certain curiosity. I started thinking about all the animals who naturally eat their afterbirth. In fact, on the wiki page for placentophagy, it shows a photo of a goat happily munching away on her kid's placenta. All very natural, and as a Natural Man, one who has backpacked many trails, snowshoed the Rockies, skied the Austrian Alps, and hiked from nude beach to nude beach on the island of Crete, I looked at the photograph of this goat, and internally went, "Ewwww!"

Clearly there is something in nature that compels any number of species to eat their placenta. Placentophagy has been observed in members of the orders of rodentia (rodents), chiroptera (bats), insectivora (hedgehogs), and lagomorpha (rabbits). Other placenta-connoisseur include cows, ungulates (which is a fun word to say and spell), and, of course, many members of the carnivora family, as well as primates. The last group is soon to be joined by one redheaded sapient member of a subbranch of the Hominidae family, my wife and future mother from the genus, Jennus Lukeshia. 

Jenn continued to read, and recited some of the potential benefits of placentophagy:

• Increase in energy

• Allow a quicker return to health after birth

• Increase production of breast milk

• Decrease likelihood of baby blues and postnatal depression

• Decrease likelihood of iron deficiency

• Decrease likelihood of insomnia or sleep disorders

 Here is one a recipe I found online:

Steam the Placenta with lemon, ginger and green chili (I like the green chili part--fits with our move to New Mexico). Dehydrate the placenta using a food dehydrator or oven for 8-10 hours until crisp (I know we're basically talking about meat here, but the word "crisp" made me want to gag a little)

Ground the dried placenta into a powder and put into vegetable capsules.

I am behind Jenn (perhaps "standing beside her" is a better way of putting it) in her desire to make the birthing process her own. She has chosen to have a home birth, which I support, but I would have been equally as supportive if she had chosen a hospital birthing room. If my wife wants to listen to New Age music every evening (and she does), well, wonderful ... and soothing. However, if she had felt a strong compulsion for head banging heavy metal music or even--god forbid--polka, well, okay then. And if Jenn wants to alternate between voraciously reading baby books and incredibly depressing novels, so be it.

My running joke about virtually everything my wife does at this point--watching a movie, pooping, eating chocolate, bitching about a co-worker--is, "Remember, you're (fill in the blank-ing) for two now." * * *

I have complete (or near complete) faith that any unusual urges Jenn experiences along the path of her pregnancy also reflect the desire of the little soul residing within her body. If Jenn believes that ingesting her placenta will benefit her in a manifest of ways, then it will.  I may even try a cap myself. 

Bon Appetit.

**(Author's note--View on an empty stomach)


*** Jenn spoke to a woman who referred to her second baby as her "Payday Baby" because she spent the entire pregnancy gorging on Payday candy bars. The baby turned out healthy and fine, but perhaps this is an argument for the body's wisdom not always speaking loudly and clearly.