© 2002 Brian Hodges - Please do not remove the copyright from this essay

nd we’re done with the yogurt," says Chandler Bing upon learning that in some cultures, women actually eat their placenta. No doubt the very idea conjures up images of fava beans and a nice Chianti. "FFTT-FFTT-FFTT-FFTT." In this day and age, the placenta is nothing more than that charming little afterthought they never show you in the health class video. Surely, it was only eaten by primitive people with bones in their noses, whose taste buds had been ritualistically removed in honor of the sun god Shazam. That’s what I thought until the day my friend Denise told me that she too had partaken of her own baby’s placenta.

"What?" Denise was a purebred, white-Irish, western-cultured, all-American woman. Somehow, I just couldn’t picture her with a knife and fork, doing… that over a candlelit table. As it turns out, the scenario wasn’t quite as horrifying as I had originally thought.

Denise’s doctor – an "herbal healing specialist" – had suggested the idea to her as a lactation aid and as a way to combat post-partum depression and hemorrhaging. It took some convincing, but Denise finally got her OB/GYN to save the placenta for her. Her husband, a Hollywood player type sent his assistant to go pick it up and drive it to their house.

And to think, in my two years as a Hollywood assistant, I got annoyed when I had to deliver dry-cleaning.

Denise cleaned the placenta in the sink, fighting off the urge to pass out and vomit the entire time. She placed the placenta in her oven on low heat for 48 hours, leaving the door open just a crack so the placenta could dry out.

Incidentally, this is the same process I use to make beef jerky.

Once the placenta had been completely dehydrated, Denise had it crushed to a fine powder and placed inside gel-capsules. She was to take two capsules, three times a day for a month. Afterwards, she still had a few dozen capsules, which when emptied into a little bit of vodka, apparently made quite a therapeutic tincture, effective in preventing the common cold.

This story stuck with me for over a year and a half, so I finally decided to check it out for myself and see just how common the whole placenta consumption thing really is.

That’s right, most guys look up sports statistics. I look up placenta.

In many ancient cultures that still exist today, from the Ibo people of Nigeria, to the Quecha people of Bolivia, and even the Native American Navajos, the placenta has always had a certain spiritual aura to it. It is often liturgically buried and returned to the earth. In fact, for the Maori people of New Zealand, the word for "placenta" and "land" are one and the same. And yes, in several cultures, it is considered proper and holy for women to actually ingest the sacred afterbirth.

The practice didn’t start creeping its way into American consciousness until quite recently. It was commonplace in the 60’s and 70’s amongst so-called "earth mothers." Certain hippie communities would eat the placenta as a ceremonial family meal. In fact, these delightfully philistine people can be thanked for introducing the world to several placenta recipes.

That’s right. Mothers who don’t want to simply dry-swallow their placentas can go to www.mothers35plus.co.uk/plac_rec.htm (which made Cruel.com’s "Cruel Site of the Day" in December 2001). There, they’ll find the ingredients for Roast Placenta, Placenta Stew, Placenta (gulp) Pizza, and the only recipe that calls for raw placenta, Placenta Cocktail. Bubba-Gump had nothing on these guys.

Will America ever be a culture that could truly embrace a woman for consuming that last special bond between herself and her baby? Probably not, no matter if it’s for reasons healthy or holy. Though we apparently have no problem moisturizing with placenta. You know those special French lotions you like so much…? For now, it remains something that only a few particularly inspired – and tough-stomached – women will consider. But, as I said to Denise: "More power to you." "To each their own." And yes, "We are definitely done with the yogurt."