Eat Me

Several years ago (neigh onto a decade now I guess) I read the book Alive written by Piers Paul Read about the plane full of rugby players from Uruguay that crashed in the Andes mountains of South America, and survived by eating the bodies of their fallen comrades. It is an excellent book, and I would rank it as probably the most unbelievable but true story of survival I have ever read. It is more amazing than any of my polar explorer stories because unlike Shakleton or Perry these guys were not trained, nor were they even remotely equipped (emotionally or physically) for their ordeal.
Anyway, just last week I saw a show about the incident, and it once again was revived in my mind. (I believe the show was on the History Channel but I don't remember for sure.) I don't want to re-tell the story, but I did want to discuss one part of it. The most controversial part, the part that shocked the world when they found out; the fact that the survivors ate the flesh of their dead friends to stay alive.
The survivors have been called cannibals by the press, but that isn't really accurate because they did not kill their friends in order to eat them, they just scavenged the bodies of those that had died by injury, cold, or illness. Some of them seemed to have no problem with it, some have lived with emotional issues ever since, and some couldn't stomach the idea at all and chose to slowly starve to death rather than pick the meat off of bones of their dead friends.

Nando Parrado survivor of Flight 571

I have no judgement about what they did, or didn't do, or their reasons. It's called survival for a reason, and under extreme circumstances extreme choices must be made. I honestly don't know what I would choose. But I would like to say this. While I am uncertain whether or not I could actually eat someone else (and raw too) I am absolutely positive I would not mind in the slightest if someone consumed my body after I was dead. I wouldn't want them to feel bad about it, and I wouldn't want someone to starve when they didn't have to on my account. The same goes for donating my organs or eyeballs (you saw how great they are) if for some reason I was to get into an accident and die. After my consciousness leaves my body I don't consider it to be something sacred, or special. I wouldn't want it to be preserved out of respect for me. In fact I rather prefer the idea of my body being something that could be utilized rather than just discarded. So if we should ever find ourselves in a situation where I am dead and you are hungry and there is nothing else around, I wholeheartedly say to you "Eat me."