I’m excited to be posting today because I’ve stumbled upon an idea that I believe will solve multiple problems that have proved intractable up until now.

First, there’s a terrible organ donor shortage that grows worse each year. People are dying needlessly, and I’m getting old enough that I’m fearful that I might be one of them. Considering the damage I’ve done to myself over the past decades, I’m likely to need a full-body transplant before much longer, and that’s not going to happen unless a lot more organs become available.

To begin, we need to make it so that organ donation is an ‘opt-out’ situation rather than ‘opt-in’. Currently, you need to file paperwork to consent to being an organ donor, and preferably to have this stated on your driver’s license, in case something abrupt and unpleasant occurs. This is completely ass-backwards. Research shows that shortly after death, most of us become unconcerned about what happens to our bodies. The default state should be ‘strip me to the bone, and then suck the marrow out’.

Also, according to the Mayo Clinic link above, about a third of consenting organ donors have their wishes over-ridden by relatives. These poor families are in the throes of grief, and shouldn’t be forced to make such important decisions at this juncture. It’s too much of a burden for them. Cut them out of the decision-making loop, I say.

According to this CDC table, about 0.8% of the US population dies each year. Since our population is a bit over 300 million, this is 2.4 million bodies, almost all of which are going to waste.

Let’s admit that many of these won’t be suitable donors, as a result of extreme age, endemic disease states, and so on. A quick glance at the CDC info indicates that probably only a third of the bodies will be usable. However, just this simple change to ‘opt-out’ will provide a massive oversupply of donors.

So, what to do with all those extra bodies, you ask?

:

:

Here’s where the brilliant second step of my idea kicks in. I call it the ‘Modified Soylent Green’ plan.

According to About.com, the average weight for an American woman is 163 pounds, and for an American man, it’s 190 pounds.

With an average weight then, of the typical American, we get 175 pounds, times 800,000 bodies. This should render down to about 39 million pounds of usable meat each year, assuming that humans are similar to cattle in this regard.

And this is a conservative estimate! I honestly think that we could use significantly more of those diseased or otherwise damaged bodies if they’re prepared and sterilized carefully. This quality control is just the sort of thing that the USDA could easily pick up, since they’re already doing it with our current meat sources.

I know what you’re thinking: Them damn fundamentalist religious types will try to ruin it for us. I like to think that an updated version of Homer Simpson’s wisdom on the subject could prevail ideologically – “If God didn’t mean for us to eat people, why did he make them out of meat?”

Also, it shouldn’t be hard to, ah, incentivize their leaders to get on board with the plan. Let’s not call it bribes; let’s call it ‘love offerings’.

I mean, they convinced their followers to vote for George W. Bush. Twice! This will be a walk in the park in comparison. Furthermore, the Catholics already do that symbolic cannibalism thing during communion, so they’re already predisposed. And the atheists, who are a rapidly growing minority, don’t give a damn.

There are a lot of side benefits to my plan, some of which might be unobvious at first glance:

1. We can use the otherwise unsuitable bodies as fertilizer, thus recycling a resource that’s currently going to waste.

2. We destroy the corrupt mortician industry that preys on the shattered families of the newly-deceased. Massive savings for those families, as the average US funeral costs over $6,000.

3. We retain the use of land that’s increasingly being given over to cemeteries. Plots are getting more expensive and harder to find.

4. New culinary vistas open for us all!

It’s a commonly-held belief that people don’t taste good. But, let’s be honest here – that’s just old wives tales and propaganda put out by radical anti-anthropophagy organizations. How do you know whether you’d like it until you’ve tried it? Give me one good reason why properly-prepared people shouldn’t taste as good as the finest Black Angus.

I think once we get the Julia Child and Betty Crocker types on board, we’ll find that many scrumptious recipes will emerge. I have low-brow tastes, I’ll admit, but I bet that Stroganoff Peopleburger Helper ™ will be just as good as the formulation that uses cow meat.

I know that many people will have differing attitudes about eating their own dearly departed. Some of us will find it repulsive to eat our families. These people should perhaps auction them on EBay. Others will consider it to be an intimate, loving farewell, and they’ll be able to do so, after only minimal butcher costs, since they’re providing the meat.

Part of this subject needs to be addressed delicately. None of us, especially those who have children of our own, starts off being comfortable with eating the wee ones. However, my surmise is that their flesh will be much more tender than that of stringy adults, and will likely bring a nice premium on the open market. See Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” — which I believe he formulated insensitively.

Literary critique aside, I agree with Swift in that I’m all for capitalism on this subject. Another incentive for families to get on board would be financial. I think that human flesh, especially since it’ll be available in relatively limited quantities, will quickly become a gourmet item. Again, the death of a loved one is typically a financial stress for most families. Why shouldn’t it instead be a profitable event? Twenty or thirty dollars a pound doesn’t seem like an unreasonable price to me, though the only way to let the market find a balance is by putting my idea into practice.

It could be significantly higher in many cases. As an example, I suspect that many celebrities might go for thousands of dollars per pound. We all want to eat Britney Spears, for instance. And I suspect that the membership of MoveOn would collectively outbid anyone else in the world if George Bush’s corpse came up for auction.

On a more personal note, I can’t even imagine how much Eric Clapton would go for, but I’d be willing to buy quite a few tickets in a lottery for a chance at a Clapton-burger with a side of fries.

And, just to be pellucidly clear — completely unlike Swift’s proposal, nobody is proposing killing humans for their flesh here. That would be barbaric. They’re already dead anyhow, you know?

Heinlein had the right idea in ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’. We’re all sad when people we love die, but wouldn’t it be great if they could provide the foundation for a delicious pizza party at the wake?

I’m sure that there are many side benefits that I haven’t foreseen yet, but there are two that are most obvious, and they provided the initial energy for this post.

I was Skyping earlier this week with She Who Is Awesome, and she related how sick she was of being evangelized by Vegetarians and Vegans. They talk about the innocent animals and the cruelty, and how it’s immoral to eat them when we could subsist on nuts and berries. She and I take the Homer Simpson stance on this issue, needless to say.

Our take on it is that the V-word people are so cranky because they haven’t had a good steak for far too long. It’s like anorexics and their violently conflicted attitudes about food in general.

Under my plan, they can eat all of the human meat that they want to. Garnished with nuts and berries, if they like. The meat will have been obtained with absolutely no cruelty or lack of consent. And it’ll be free-range cannibalism. I’m sure they’ll love that, too.

That should chill them out and get them off our asses about the subject.

The final, and greatest, benefit will be the one that all of our faithful readers hold closest to their hearts.

Think about it: If we diligently eat and grind to fertilizer all of the newly dead, we can utterly prevent the next zombie infestation, which, as we know, threatens our entire civilization.

This alone makes the whole endeavor worthwhile.

:

Oh, and not to put too fine a point on it, the Mayo Clinic link tells you how to sign up to be an organ donor, if such is your wish. Which it should be. I’m gonna need your heart. And lungs. And BRAINNNNNS!!!!!…..

EDIT: And here’s the Texas-specific donor registry at Donate Life Texas.