Many men hold the hand of partners during childbirth, but one man has taken his involvement with the experience a step further – by eating his wife’s placenta.
Nick Baines took the next leap as he left the hospital with his wife, newborn son and a doggy bag with ‘a few cheeky steaks of placenta’.
Keen to find out how it would taste, the Guardian journalist decided to indulge in placentophagy, the act of eating the placenta.
While still frowned upon by some – the bewildered surgeon performing his wife’s C-section asked: ‘How are you going to cook it…with spices?’ – eating the placenta for its apparent health benefits is growing in popularity.
Mr Baines searched online for recipes to best ingest his wife’s discharge, with an initial attempt at a placenta smoothie proving unsuccessful.
The meat-filled drink ‘looked rank’, despite being blended with coconut water and banana for 10 minutes.
In his own words: ‘Up front was the distinct flavour of banana, superseded by a metallic, bloody backnote.
‘It had a mineral earthiness to it and tasted exactly like the delivery room had smelled.’
He finally found success with seasoning the meat and cooking it served in a taco, which apparently tasted ‘rich, with a beef like quality.’
‘It was tender, kind of like roast brisket and not dissimilar to Texas BBQ.’
