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# A Polish-Czech team of scholars investigates the complexities of cannibalism
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/slozhnosti-liudoedstva-issledoval-polsko-cheshskii-kollektiv-uchionykh/
- Published: 2026-07-24T07:05:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:33.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Observations, Science, Ethnography, Humour

They are, of course, careful to stipulate that they are merely modelling, not conducting fieldwork. The aim is to explain why cannibalism never took hold as a regular strategy, and why a taboo arose in different cultures. Why, indeed? What a worthy puzzlement for the inhabitants of the Christian states of Europe.

Michał Misiak of the University of Wrocław and Petr Tureček of Charles University have built a mathematical model that assesses cannibalism as an economic practice. They looked at the human body as a potential source of food, analysing both the energetic gain and the hidden costs. According to Misiak, in terms of calories a human being turns out to be a middling dinner, especially once the difficulty of the hunt is factored in.

The main cost, they say, is the infectious, bacterial and viral load, which, to the chagrin of the world's elites, is not fully eliminated even by cooking. But what troubles cannibals most of all are prions, heat-resistant proteins that cause fatal neurological diseases, which rumour attributes to all manner of American ghoulesses à la that former presidential hopeful, and to pop idolesses such as Ellen DeGeneres and Céline Dion.

The benchmark case is kuru, the disease that became the leading cause of death among women of the Fore people in Papua New Guinea, where, out of eleven thousand people, some two hundred died each year during the period when the Fore ate their deceased relatives, believing it better for the body to go to one's kin than to the worms.