"My First Time Eating Human Flesh" — Celebrity Couple Posts Video Eating Wife's Placenta
Guess that's one way to not waste anything.
By Sadho Ram — 19 May 2023, 05:02 PM
Earlier this week, a celebrity couple took to Instagram to show how they cooked and ate the wife's placenta after she gave birth
Taiwanese-American actor, Benji Wang, 40, and his wife, Cindy, welcomed their baby girl into the world on 12 May.
They posted a Reel on the husband's Instagram account, @kungfubenji, on 14 May.
The Reel, which has been flagged by the platform as containing graphic content, shows Benji demonstrating how he cooked the umbilical cord and placenta by first washing and cleaning them. He then chops the placenta with the umbilical cord into bite-size pieces before boiling it in water.
After boiling once, he changes the water and boils the pieces again.
WARNING: The screenshot collage shows the raw placenta and umbilical cord being boiled.
Image via @kungfubenji (Instagram)He then stir-fries them with onions, ginger, and capsicum in avocado oil
The Reel shows the actor cum content creator chopping the vegetables, which he first sautés in avocado oil before seasoning them with salt and adding the boiled placenta and umbilical cord pieces.
He finishes cooking the dish by seasoning it with some black pepper.
He then served the dish on the dining table to for his wife to eat
Cindy takes the first bite using a pair of chopsticks.
She then passes the chopsticks to her husband, who takes a bite of a piece of placenta and brings the remaining portion closer to the camera to reveal what it looks like in the middle. It has a slightly pinkish hue.
The rest of the video shows them enjoying the dish.
According to an interview Benji gave to TVBS News Network, the dish tasted "a little like pork liver, but also pork belly and intestines. The taste is pretty average," reported The Star.
"This is my first time eating human flesh," he said, adding that he was initially very nervous when he took his first bite.
However, unlike her husband, Cindy said she found the placenta "delicious and crunchy".
You can watch the Reel on Instagram here.
But why did the couple do this?
In the comments section of the Reel, many wondered why would anyone choose to eat a human placenta, with some even going so far as to say that the couple were committing cannibalism.
According to the husband, he has heard that the best way to restore a woman's body after she has given birth is by eating the placenta, which is rather simple to incorporate into cooking.
The act of eating the placenta is called placentophagy, and while it is common among many animals, it isn't so common for humans to do the same. Lately, however, many celebrity couples have taken to it.
Some of the big names who have eaten their placenta after giving birth — due to its rumoured health benefits — include Kim Kardashian, Chrissy Teigen, Alicia Silverstone, January Jones, and Hilary Duff.
As for the rumours, there is no proof that eating a placenta has any health benefits, as the claims have not been thoroughly tested
According to Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit American academic medical centre, while there have been claims that placentophagy can prevent postpartum depression, and improve mood, energy, and milk supply, there's no evidence that eating the placenta provides any health benefits.
In fact, Mayo Clinic warns, placentophagy can be harmful to both the mother and the baby.
Similarly, according to a BBC report, very little work has been carried out to assess anecdotal evidence and there is not one double-blind, placebo-controlled study on human placentophagy.
However, if a mother wants to keep her placenta, it's her choice.
