Today I Learned: Yes, You Can Eat Your Own Poop

Even when we were infants, the idea of coprophagy (the consumption of feces, guys) was gross, but apparently some very high-minded journalists over at Gawker are still dying to know: is it or isn’t it safe to eat your own poop?

Luckily enough for them, science was ready with the answer. And luckily enough for all you latent Phils and Lils out there, the answer wasn’t pretty.

(It’s yes, by the way. Yes you can eat your own poopy-poop.)

The gist is that while urine is sterile and poop isn’t, both are perfectly safe to eat, because all the bacteria in poop is 100% yours.

“Those are the same bacteria that live in your gut and play many healthy roles in your body,” Daniel Pomp, a professor from the UNC School of Global Public Health, told Gizmodo, “so coprophagy is not necessarily unhealthy unless the poop originates from an unhealthy individual.”

Our natural aversion to eating poop, moreover, probably comes from the fact that most fecal matter repositories (sewers and toilets and things) aren’t usually filled with just our personal stool, but rather, mixed stools from a considerable range of other behinds – which are of course poisonous.

But if you were able to obtain a perfectly clean pile of poop, and were hankering for a warm, steamy fecal breakfast, science says eat away. Sure you may get a weird glance here and there, but other animals eat their own poop and there may be some nutritional value in there. Maybe. If you dig.

It’s something?

H/T Gizmodo + PicThx Shishigirl