Internet Zillionaire

As you know, my wife is going to deliver a baby in a few months, and we’ll soon have a slightly used placenta on our hands. What do we do with this thing? Any takers out there?

They say that the afterbirth is chock full of nutrients, and most pragmatic people hate to see something like that go to waste. For that reason, some people bury their placenta in the garden, thereby perpetuating the circle of life by growing super-produce laced with human bodily fluids. That’s one option, but it just seems like we could do more with the afterbirth than just use if for fertilizer.

In some cultures, it’s common to actually eat the placenta. This seems kind of cannibalistic to me. Even if I could get over that aspect of it, there are a bevy of other issues to address…

For starters, how do you even get the placenta home from the hospital? Are there doggie bags for this purpose?

Me (rubbing stomach eagerly): “Excuse me, nurse, can you box this up for me? I definitely want to polish this off when I get home!”

And if you were to actually eat it, how would you prepare it? Let’s face it, I doubt Betty Crocker has any recipes for the afterbirth. I think it’s just something you have to experiment with… try different spices, different side dishes, that sorta thing. Then you can start to tackle tougher issues, like determining whether to serve white or red wine. At this point, I’m sure you’re all thinking what I’m thinking: All of this could make for a fantastic episode of “Iron Chef.”

If my wife does go to the trouble to make a placenta casserole, I guess I would try it, just so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings. Of course, all of this is a moot point, since I basically eat whatever my wife cooks for dinner without question anyway. For all I know, I could have had placenta last night… And if that were the case, I would have to say that placenta tastes (and looks) a lot like spaghetti. This is somewhat surprising, as I always assumed the afterbirth would taste like chicken.

Of course, supposing she did make placenta casserole one night, I can’t imagine it being very good. I mean, seeing as how I hate green bean casserole, it’s not like placenta would be any tastier, right? My biggest fear is that she’ll double the recipe, and make a whole bunch of it, and then we’re stuck with lots of leftovers. It’s not like I have a dog or stepchild to feed it to. I suppose I could always take the leftovers to a homeless shelter or something. Who knows, maybe they can make soup out of it. I could probably even write it off as a charitable donation too.

On the other hand, what happens if she serves placenta casserole and it really hits the spot? And as I mentioned above, the placenta is full of nutrients… seriously, it’s like the equivalent of three bowls of Kellogg’s Total. What if I actually develop a taste for it? It’s not like you can order afterbirth as a pizza topping. It could be tough having to go nine months between servings of placenta.

Because of that, it’s probably best if we skip eating the placenta altogether. We’ll just get it bronzed like everyone else.