Food Preservatives and Human Decomposition

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

A rather gullible fellow who is a bit woo-ish said that some guy told him that there are so many preservatives in food today that corpses take longer to decay than they did "years ago". Sounded like nonsense to me. Any thoughts or interesting links?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

There's a number of forensics departments that maintain body farms. I think if the preservatives really made that much of a difference the results from the decomposition tests would be so inconsistent no conclusions usuable in forensics could be drawn.

 

[TX50]

That sounds like the old one about the bodies of
alcoholics taking longer to cremate.

 

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

There's a number of forensics departments that maintain body farms. I think if the preservatives really made that much of a difference the results from the decomposition tests would be so inconsistent no conclusions usuable in forensics could be drawn.

Yeah, that makes sense. It sounded like a "natural food" type of argument. It was ironic to hear the guy say this as he spread leftover cake icing on a day-old donut.

 

[kerikiwi]

That sounds like the old one about the bodies of
alcoholics taking longer to cremate.

Wrong. The bodies of alcoholics are easier to cremate because of the extra fuel they contain.
I mean it's obvious, isn't it?